China's Strategic Seapower: The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age 9781503622319

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China's Strategic Seapower

China's Strategic Seapower The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age

John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Stanford, California

Studies in International Security and Arms Control David]. Holloway, Michael M. May, and John W. Lewis, General Editors Sponsored by the Center for International Security and Arms Control Stanford University

Sources of photographs: Except for photograph 5, which was reproduced by permission of Jane's Information Group, all photographs were generously provided by Chinese organizations whose cooperation is gratefully acknowledged.

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1994 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP data appear at the end of the book Original printing 1994

FOR

CYNTHIA, STEPHEN, AND AMY AND LIU YING

Preface

This study is not the ordinary fare of China scholars. Submarines, nuclear power, ballistic missiles, and strategic doctrines touch a variety of cultures, disciplines, and specialties. This is not even the study we intended when we completed our history of Beijing's early nuclear weapons program (China Builds the Bomb; 1988). We then planned to write a companion volume on the strategic missile program. Though we did complete that study ("China's Ballistic Missile Program," 1992), the situation had changed immeasurably in a few short years. With China's near-total shift to solid-propellant rockets and the tight linkage of the sea-based and new mobile ballistic missiles, it was clear that the main story belonged to the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and the nuclear-powered submarine. That story, moreover, allowed us to carry forward our history of the strategic weapons complex and its fate during the tumultuous decades after the explosion of China's first atomic bomb in October 1964 and its multistage thermonuclear weapon in June 1967. As our subtitle puts it, this is an examination of the politics of strategic force modernization in the decades of the 196os through the 198os, China's nuclear era. That era ranged from the politics of the Great Leap Forward begun in r 9 58 to the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the years after the Tiananmen crisis of 1989. The tale of China's political development cannot be completed without a detailed understanding of its strategic and defense policies. The men and women who brought the Communist revolution to the Middle Kingdom were first and foremost soldiers, and they perceived a world of enemies and military threats. We have attempted to examine that pre-nuclear world in Uncertain Partners (1993), the book we coauthored with Sergei Goncharov on the creation of the Sino-Soviet alliance and the origins of the Korean War. Mao Zedong's world began in war and assumed the inevi-

viii

Preface

tability of future conflicts. That worldview shaped his politics and his policies, and served as a constant even as he shifted between compromise and conflict in his effort to determine China's future. When we started this study, we realized how much we had to learn. Building a nuclear-powered submarine and an SLBM demands far greater technological-industrial knowledge and capacity than building nuclear weapons. From metallurgy to reactors, from solid rocket propellants to advanced guidance technology, we stretched our quest for understanding. We devoured materials in English and Chinese on welding, electronics, underwater launch systems, missile controls, chemicals, and submarine systems. Chinese designers and engineers, we came to understand, had gone through a much more demanding quest on the same types of materials, and in their search they gradually absorbed and embraced a concept found in Western sea-based strategic programs: survivable deterrence. That concept informed their thinking as they struggled for their own survival during the disastrous years of the Cultural Revolution. Our research has depended to a significant extent on the technical assistance of a number of key specialists. One of these, Bob Dietz, spent hours with us discussing the details of missile guidance and missile development; we could not have completed this work without the knowledge he so kindly shared over several years. Mark Sakitt and Victor Li made critical contributions to the manuscript, and we also wish to thank John J. Engelhardt, John Harvey, Hua Di, and Jon Jenny. Several other American specialists were of major assistance but asked to remain anonymous. We respect their request but acknowledge their significant contributions with thanks. We faced the challenge that comes from deciding on what must seem trivial matters. All things Chinese are cited and spelled in many different ways. The official spelling systems in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan are quite different but take on a certain political significance. Even from the academic perspective, no spelling system is truly adequate, and the several "standard" orthographies all posed problems. With some misgivings and an exception for the names of some well-known figures and place-names (for example, Chiang Kai-shek, Quemoy, and Yangtze) and Chinese people and places under the jurisdiction of Taiwan, we have used standard pinyin and, for Chinese place-names and boundaries, the pinyin gazetteer in Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Fen Sheng Dituji (Collection of Provincial Maps of the People's Republic of China; Beijing, 1983}. Our combined labors could not have succeeded without the aid of dedicated editors, cartographers, proofreaders, and manuscript preparers. Here we especially wish to thank the staffs of the Stanford University Press, and of the Hoover Institution's East Asian Collection. A special word of

Preface

IX

appreciation goes to Gerry Bowman, Carole Hyde, Douglas Peckler, Anca Ruhlen, and Danyune Zhang of the Stanford Center for International Security and Arms Control; each significantly helped us complete this book. During the years of research and writing, our Center colleagues Coit Blacker, Lynn Eden, and William Perry unfailingly provided encouragement and support, and Jacquelyn Lewis shared in the toil of polishing drafts and in countless other ways made this book possible. The generous help that supported our research and writing came from several important sources. We wish to thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Columbia Foundation, Dr. Marjorie Kiewit, the Peter Kiewit Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Walter H. Shorenstein Family Fund. We must add the obvious disclaimer that we alone bear the responsibility for this volume. This book represents the last in a series of books and articles intended to understand the scope and evolution of Chinese security policy. Here we have examined that policy from the perspective of Beijing's changing strategic interests and weapons decisions. Our study of the Chinese nuclear weapons program focused on one part of the military-industrial system during the system's formative years, 1955-1967. By dealing with the development of the nuclear-powered submarine and the SLBM, this volume expands the horizon to encompass the broader political events and industrial decisions of the years 1958 to 1993· We end the book by describing not only the evolution of Chinese strategy but also a 35-year pattern of interaction between politics and technology. An understanding of that pattern, we believe, creates a more accurate framework for the study of Chinese political-economic development during the first 44 years of the People's Republic. J.W.L. X.L.T. August

I,

1993

Contents

I.

Technology and Self-Reliance in the Great Leap Era PART 1.

2.

I

The Submarine

Nuclear Propulsion

23

3. Designing

47

4· Military Industry

74 103

5. Building and Deployment PART I I.

The Missile

6. Solid Propulsion and the End of an Era 7. Guidance and Flight Control 8. Success PART III.

Strategy

9· Strategic Uncertainty ro. Rationale and Reason in the Nuclear Era Appendix: Key Figures in China's Nuclear-Powered Submarine Project, 1958-1992 Notes References Cited Index Photographs follow pages 46 and r66

209

231

2 45

253 331 377

Maps and Figures

MAPS

People's Republic of China

XIV

China's Third-Line Region FIGURES

I. Initial Organization of Project 09

9

2. Organization of the Submarine Power Plant Program, 1970

44

3· Organization of Project 09, Oct. 1969

63

4· Organization of the Defense Industry, Dec. 1969

86

5. Organization for the Construction of the 09 Submarines, 197 5 6. Engineering Synthesis of the 09-1 and 09-2 Submarines

II4

7· Organization for the Development of the JL-I Missile, 1979

142

8. A Missile's Guidance and Flight Control Systems

156

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TAIWAN

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South China Sea Nansha Islands (Spratlys)

I

PHILIPPINES

People's Republic of China

China's Strategic Seapower

ONE

Technology and Self-Reliance in the Great Leap Era

In the late spring of 19 58, the Communist Party and military leadership of China met in almost continuous session over a two-month period. First the Party and then the People's Liberation Army hammered out the details for a dramatic shift in national direction.1 In announcing the results of their deliberations, Mao Zedong and his colleagues proclaimed the "general line of socialist construction" and set in motion policies that disavowed paced, planned modernization in favor of mass-based, political-economic radicalism. Within months, vast teams of workers, unfurling Mao's red banners, launched nationwide water conservation projects, built countless backyard steel furnaces, and restructured their villages into people's communes. The Great Leap Forward had begun? The social and economic ramifications of the new line were staggering, though not unanticipated.3 Already at a conference in Nanning in January 19 58, Mao had advocated a "rash advance," and in response, political activists were enjoined to mobilize China's millions to "transform the country after three years of hard struggle." 4 Mao later declared that though the rural people's communes emerged in April, the movement toward them had not been foreseen at the Chengdu Conference of March.5 From all evidence, however, Mao had not only foreseen the communes by then but had formulated the sequence of actions for their creation and for the Great Leap. Once this radical eruption gained momentum, Mao convoked Party and state meetings to give the movement its bearings, or, as he put it, to break superstitions, galvanize his forces, and energize the country.6 "During the meetings," he said, "brains started to work and eight years' experience [since the founding of the People's Republic] was summed up." 7 In his many talks to the participants, the Chairman nagged, berated, and generally harangued his colleagues. These were far-ranging seminars on the

2

Technology and Self-Reliance

grand sweep of concerns that had played on his mind for months: bureaucracy; ideology; dependency, both foreign and domestic; development and military preparedness; and creativity. His stated goal was to "catch up with Great Britain" by harnessing the energy potential of the populace.8 He compared that potential to a uranium atom: "After the fission of the atomic nucleus of our nation, thermal energy will be released which becomes so formidable that we will be able to do what was beyond our ability before." 9 Mao even hinted that progress on atomic fission in China was being thwarted by experts and technocrats, and in any event only "the masses" could succeed in tapping the nation's developmental energy. He labeled his associates who supported expertise over ideology "mindless politicians divorced from reality." 10 Earlier, he had noted that "our status quo faction is too large." 11 The Communist leader signaled his contempt for conservative technocrats by comparing them to useless academics. The Party had been terrified of professors, he noted, "ever since we came into the towns" during the later civil war years.12 Yet the scholars proved not to be innovators. "Ever since ancient times," he said, "the people who founded new schools of thought were all young people without too much learning." 13 Mao opened the second session of the Eighth Party Congress in May with an all-out assault on superstition. He urged Party leaders not to be afraid of professors and not to be reluctant to become professors, reiterated his reflections on the creativity of the young and untutored, and then presented a roster of history's most inventive minds to prove his point. Stalin was wrong to insist that "technology decides everything," Mao said, for if this was so, he asked, "then what about politics?" The fact was, he declared, the nonprofessional Party politician was much more important than the professional expert and, in all cases, should lead that expert. 14 Mao's themes and conclusions immediately defined the agenda for the two-month meeting of the Central Military Commission that opened on May 2 7.15 From the published speeches that have found their way into print outside China over the past years, Mao appears to have here advocated less dogmatism in following Soviet rules and experience and less reliance on Soviet technology.16 Indeed, whereas he had simply belittled atomic weapons in comparison with the deadly swords of yesterday's warriors at the second session of the Party congress a few weeks before the military commission's first meeting, he now extended his censure of dependence on the weapons themselves to include the rote adoption of Soviet offensive plans and thinking. 17 Specifically, Mao referred to a resolution concerning the problem of technological reform passed two years earlier at a Party congress. He now

Technology and Self-Reliance

3

deemed this resolution incorrect because "it overly emphasized Soviet help." Though China was in need of Soviet aid, he said, "what is of primary importance is self-help. If we should unduly stress reliance upon Soviet aid, let us ask on whom the Soviet Union depended for its help?" 18 Given the thrust of Mao's recorded remarks, one might reasonably conclude that Mao's admonitions against "blind faith in foreigners" extended to blind faith in technology, especially foreign technology, and to a rejection of Soviet defense aid in favor of military self-reliance.19 Recently published materials from China, however, call that conclusion into question for, as we now know, 1958 was a turning point in Beijing's quest to obtain maximum military-technical aid from Moscow. The direction was toward more, not less. In Mao's mind, it seems clear, his comrades had to distinguish between the unambiguous need for Soviet aid and the unwanted imitation of Soviet ideas and regulations that ran against China's cherished revolutionary traditions, especially the hallowed doctrine of People's War. Mao defined that doctrine as "man over weapons," revolutionary self-reliance, and grass-roots participation in and support for righteous conflicts. As was usual for him, Mao personalized his critique of "erroneous ideas,'' in this case ideas about People's War, and identified them with Marshal Liu Bocheng, whose leadership of the Military Academy had given him increasing influence over the military educational system and the thinking of younger military officers.20 Thus Mao used the occasion of the military commission meeting in the summer of 19 58 to order Marshal Liu to attend and subject himself to criticism. Accused at the meeting of "carrying out the bourgeois military line,'' Liu suffered rebuke after rebuke in "extremely abnormal ways." Several hours later, the already ailing marshal was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, and soon after he was "forced to stand aside." In addition, Mao used the platform to berate Chief of the General Staff Su Yu and two vice-ministers of defense allegedly associated with Liu, and they and many other senior officers were dismissed.2' Mao's worry about historic Russian efforts to dominate China also informed the logic of a policy that separated the quest for more Soviet aid from the blind acceptance of all things Soviet to the detriment of the nation's sovereignty.Z1 In March 19 58, when Nikita Khrushchev replaced Nikolai Bulganin as Soviet premier, Mao concluded that Khrushchev would try to intensify his control over China once he had consolidated his position in the Kremlin.23 Again Mao personalized the matter. His own relations with Khrushchev had long been strained, and the Chairman translated dislike into political mistrust.Z4 For Mao, each decision was a bal-

4

Technology and Self-Reliance

ancing act between competing alternatives, as well as a means of retaliating against individuals, both Chinese and foreigners, who had fallen from his favor. In sum, his bias toward self-reliance was meant to limit only the political and doctrinal effects of Soviet aid, not its volume. When coupled with the bold vision of the Great Leap, Mao's confident expectation that Moscow's aid would increase apparently helped banish any doubts he might have harbored about the most pressing decision then before the Chinese military: whether to attempt the building of a nuclear-powered submarine and its ballistic missile. The 09 Decision Shortly after the opening of the Central Military Commission conference in May 19 58, Marshal Nie Rongzhen, the leader of weapons research and development, convened a separate symposium to explore the potential for R&D on a nuclear-powered missile submarine.25 Present at this June meeting were senior figures from the navy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the First and Second Ministries of Machine Building, and the Fifth Academy (responsible for missile R&D).26 Nie had prepared well for the meeting, and within days the participants concurred on the fundamental operational principles, proposed rate of progress, division of tasks, organizational systems, and requirements for plant construction for the new programs. Let it be noted that, beyond the long presumed but largely unstated commitments to defense modernization and to reducing the American threat to China, Nie's group did not discuss or appear to consider relevant how these programs, if successful, would fit any new strategic concept or contradict the assumptions of People's War. The members of Nie's group did not explicate the underlying strategic rationale for the program, and no one asked them to do so. This decision-making process should be viewed within the spirit of the times. At this point, Beijing's leaders embraced without question a torrent of utopian slogans and schemes. To cite only one example, in the space of nine months, from November 19 57 to July 19 58, Mao first called for surpassing Great Britain within r 5 years, then seven years, and finally two years?? Yet no one dared express skepticism, let alone ridicule. In such an atmosphere, wildly exaggerated optimism inevitably penetrated the military high command, whose members soon called for the development of "what others have" and the creation of a "small but all-inclusive" ~rsenal? 8 Possibilities now became certainties. By this time, driven by the unchallenged quest for advanced weapon

Technology and Self-Reliance

5

technologies, the navy's research-and-development system was already taking shape. As early as 19 56, Nie had stressed the military aspects of the Twelve-Year Plan for the Development of Science and Technology and had given priority to building a nuclear power plant for submarines.29 In the following year, Vice-Admiral Luo Shunchu, one of the navy's deputy commanders, had begun organizing the naval scientific system, and by 19 58 he had established six research institutes-on warship design, underwater weapons, navigation, underwater acoustics, engineering design, and medical science and service-under the administration of a new service branch, the Naval Science and Technology Research Department.30 At the same time, Defense Minister Peng Dehuai, then in charge of daily affairs of the Central Military Commission, had approved the building of a large-scale research facility for the development of naval missiles.31 Thus, the navy's fundamental R&D administration was already in place when, on June 27, 1958, during the military commission conference, Nie Rongzhen submitted his formal recommendation for commencing the nuclear submarine and SLBM programs to Mao and the central leadership via Minister of Defense Peng and Premier Zhou Enlai.32 In his "Report on the Problem of Designing and Trial-Manufacturing an Atomic Submarine on a Self-Reliant Basis," Nie noted that with an experimental nuclear reactor already in operation, the Scientific Planning Commission believed the time had come to consider possible military applications.33 Nie's proposal to develop both submarine and payload simultaneously was unprecedented. The American Polaris missile program was not given the go-ahead until 1956, when the U.S. navy had solved the mysteries of nuclear propulsion.34 The Soviet engineers, convinced that concentrating on the twin challenges of nuclear propulsion and sea-launched ballistic missiles in parallel would incur great risks, had likewise elected to proceed sequentially. The first Soviet missile submarine operated on diesel power. Having gleaned some information about these foreign programs, Nie's first recommendation was to advance gradually and systematically, and to this end, he focused on the program's basic organizational requirements. He advocated the appointment of the vaguely named Four-Person Leading Group headed by Luo Shunchu and Zhang Liankui to conceptualize the steps to be taken in building the nuclear-powered submarine.35 (We have already met Admiral Luo as the man who earlier in the year had created the navy's research institutes.) Zhang was the vice-minister of the First Ministry of Machine Building, which was then responsible for general civilian and military industry. They, along with rer-resentatives from the Second Ministry of Machine Building (nuclear industry) and the Fifth Academy (missile development), would investigate competing design approaches for

6

Technology and Self-Reliance

the submarine and its weapons and would outline the planning, organizational, and manufacturing requirements for the long-term program.36 Even though the military high command was meeting in almost daily session in late June 1958, Zhou Enlai gave Nie's report priority attention and quickly passed it through channels to Deng Xiaoping's General Secretariat for referral to the Politburo's Standing Committee. Deng appended a note to his transmittal letter endorsing the proposed project, and a few days later, taking note of the chain of endorsements, the Standing Committee unanimously decided to proceed. There is no record of any debate or moves to delay, let alone any worry expressed about the People's War concept of "man over weapons," self-reliance, or Soviet help. One senior official remarked that the committee's "examination and approval of [Nie's] report was even faster than had been expected." In July, Mao signed the directive authorizing the commencement of the nuclear-powered submarine project and the formation of the Four-Person Leading Group under Luo Shunchu and Zhang Liankui.37 The code name was Project 09. With Mao's blessing in hand, the Central Military Commission on July 28, just six days after adjourning its landmark conference on self-reliance, passed the "Resolution on the Construction of the Navy." The document gave priority to the submarine service and to the SLBM (code-named Project JL) and the power plant for the first-generation nuclear submarines. Over the next two months, the Luo-Zhang group worked out the procedural details, and by October I 9 58, research on the nuclear power plant and on solid propellants for the submarine missile had gotten under way.38 Despite the highly publicized emphasis in the Great Leap Forward on mass movements and popular participation in science and technology, Project 09 and its associated missile project proved relatively free from any outside interference during the start-up years. In our earlier study of the nuclear weapons program (Project oz), we showed how that effort was undermined by the zealotry of Mao's followers in this period. Since 02 had very high priority, too, we can only speculate on why the submarine project was able to escape the same fate. It may simply be that the navy's small and isolated initial research facilities on protected military bases remained invisible to hypercritical Party cadres and activists and thus could be insulated bureaucratically from penetration in ways that uranium mining and the construction of the large nuclear weapons industrial facilities could not.39 A more likely explanation is that the navy's participation shielded the program. The central role of a military service in an advanced researchand-development program was unprecedented and in fact has not been repeated since. Though the shipbuilding ministry, the Sixth Ministry of Ma-

Technology and Self-Reliance

7

chine Building, would eventually be spun off from the First and the followon Third Ministry, and the navy would share some of its project-related authority with this state organ, the navy continued to play a central directing role in the development of both the submarine and the SLBM throughout. In defining this role, it is worth noting, the Chinese consciously studied the bureaucratic powers and techniques of the U.S. Navy's Special Projects Office in connection with the Polaris program.40 They liked not only the methodology but the relative freedom from outside interference that the U.S. program appeared to enjoy. The Start-Up Organization In his report of June 27, 1958, Nie Rongzhen had stressed the importance to the project's future of an effective bureaucratic infrastructure, and following the creation of the Luo-Zhang group, other organizations were set in place. That August, in a directive entitled "On the Development of New Naval Submarine Technologies," the Central Committee put the Second Ministry in charge of the "research-and-design tasks on the reactor of the nuclear-powered submarine and on related control systems and protective equipment." 41 At the same time, the navy and the First Ministry were ordered to prepare a comprehensive design plan for the first boat.42 Nie Rongzhen's report of June 2 7 also set in motion the initial planning and research tasks on Project 09 at the Institute of Atomic Energy (IAE). The Second Ministry had already created some of the building blocks for nuclear energy research at the institute and since January 195 5 had, in secret, taken the first steps toward the atomic bomb.43 Now, in September, it ordered the IAE's Reactor Engineering Research Section (code-named Section 12) to complete preliminary studies of a submarine nuclear power plant and to form its own Submarine Reactor Design Group.* The principal research thrust on the reactor started in Section 12, as well as in several sister labs and organs, including the Reactor Component and Materials Research Section and the Metal Physics Research Section, both of which worked on reactor components.44 The work environment for so ambitious a program was terrible. Section 12's researchers were crammed into a barely refurbished building that had little heat and lighting. The ministry had assigned young and inexperienced technical personnel to the section and left them to their own devices, without any data, experimental equipment, or computers. The section's files *In 1964, the Beijing-based section was enlarged, made more autonomous, andrenamed the Reactor Engineering and Technology Institute (Institute 194). Four years later, elements of 194 moved to Sichuan Province to become the Southwest Reactor Engineering Research and Design Academy (First Academy). Li Jue et al., 295, 365, 385.

8

Technology and Self-Reliance

contained only general pictures of the configurations of foreign nuclearpowered submarines and sketchy details on two marine power plants. As the youthful designers saw it, they were not much better off than the general populace would have been, had it been charted to come up with a workable design entirely on the basis of self-reliance.45 Also in September, having checked with the Four-Person Leading Group, the navy and the First Ministry jointly formed the Nuclear. Powered Submarine Overall Design Section, with individual teams assigned to work on the vessel's overall design, power plant, weapons and equipment, and electronics.46 At the same time, the navy set up its own Shipbuilding Technology Research Section to determine the technical specifications for the sub.47 As noted, the designers, even though they saw their own efforts as fully in accord with the can-do spirit of the times, had the good fortune of escaping the most destructive consequences of the Great Leap. By the time they set to work, in the fall of 19 58, the mass movements were already beginning to take a toll on the other defense programs.48 Ordinary workers in key military organs now claimed to know more than advanced experts and, rejecting Soviet advice and blueprints, attempted to modify or develop sophisticated weapons systems on their own. The result was sheer chaos.49 Nie Rongzhen, in the meantime, was bringing the submarine program into even better order. In October, right after the studies on the design of the power plant commenced, he submitted yet another report to the military commission, proposing that all strategic weapons programs be brought under unified command, and that the Second Ministry be reorganized within that new command. In response, the commission established the Defense Science and Technology Commission with Nie as director (see Fig. I) and merged the Aviation Industrial Commission and the Division for Scientific and Technological Research of the General Staff's Equipment Planning Department into the new body.50 In April 1959, the Fifth Department (responsible for managing missile development) was also merged into the new commission.51 With its expanded authority and reach, Nie's commission could oversee the development of nuclear weapons and strategic launch vehicles, and shared responsibility with the navy for conducting research and development on the nuclear sub. Over the next months, as Nie's organization gained experience, a major debate erupted within the elite over the most disruptive Great Leap policies, and one casualty of the struggle was Defense Minister Peng Dehuai.52 Following the ouster of Peng and Chief of the General Staff Huang Kecheng at a Party plenum in August 1959, other senior military leaders moved up in a general reshuffling. Lin Biao replaced Peng as defense minister, and he,

I

Politburo

I

I Central Military Commission

State Council

----------------------------------- ' :' I Defense Science and Technology Commission

-

Navy

I Chinese Academy of Sciences

Second Ministry of Machine Building

Institute of Atomic Energy

First Ministry of Machine Building

Ship Repairing & Shipbuilding Department

Science & Technology Research Department

NuclearPowered Submarine Overall Design Section

Shipbuilding Technology Research Section

6 research institutes

Reactor Engineering Research Section

Submarine Reactor Design Group

Fig. r. Initial organization of Project 09 (after Oct. 1958).ln this and the subsequent figures charting the changes in the project's command structure, a solid line shows the control and reporting channels and a dotted line shows coordination among the indicated bodies.

10

Technology and Self-Reliance

Nie Rongzhen, and He Long were made vice-chairmen (under Mao Zedong) of the Central Military Commission.53 Nie was the only one of the three not then on the Politburo. Lin Biao, in turn, recommended to Mao that Minister of Public Security Luo Ruiqing be appointed chief of the General Staff, but Luo remembers that within two years after he returned to the army, he "became not so obedient" in Lin's eyes.54 As Mao moved people around, their personal animosities and rival networks grew. We shall return many times to the story of these rivalries, for it was in this chaotic political and personally contentious climate that the Chinese conducted the nuclear-powered submarine project in its pioneering and most challenging years. Yet the project progressed, and Beijing's leaders looked to Moscow to guarantee its success. The Quest for Soviet Aid In our earlier study of the Chinese nuclear weapons program, we reviewed briefly Soviet nuclear assistance to China over the years 19 56-58. Here we want to focus principally on developments related to the navy. Our purpose is to examine just how the Chinese sought maximum military aid from the Soviet Union at the moment Mao Zedong was expounding the virtues of national self-reliance. For the nuclear submarine project (Project 09 ), as we shall see, that quest proved futile. Nevertheless, before self-reliance became an unwanted reality, Moscow helped the Chinese define and make progress on some of the fundamental technologies involved, including nuclear reactors. The beginnings of Sino-Soviet cooperation were auspicious. In August and December 1956, the Soviet Union agreed to help support China's nuclear industries and research facilities and its prospecting for uranium under less restrictive conditions than those negotiated in 19 55 ,S 5 though it was still unwilling to provide assistance on the nuclear weapons themselves. According to Chinese sources, Khrushchev at this time was soliciting political backing to recover from the disastrous aftermath of the Hungarian uprising in October 19 56 and the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet movement in Poland, and so was impelled to become "more flexible on the matter of giving sophisticated technical aid to China." 56 Not the least of Khrushchev's problems in the wake of these policy failures was a rising opposition to his rule within his own leadership group, a predicament that gave the Chinese reason to hope that they might exploit his troubles for their own ends. Beijing's ambassador to Moscow, Liu Xiao, was quick to alert them to the situation, reporting that, "in order to convince the Chinese [Communist] Party to support his position in the polit-

Technology and Self-Reliance

II

ical struggle within the CPSU, Khrushchev needs to indicate some manifestation of his friendship toward our country."57 It was a point that did not escape Nie Rongzhen, who did not delay in recommending to Zhou Enlai that the Chinese "seize the opportunity" and use their political leverage to get greater military assistance. Responding with alacrity, Zhou gave him permission to initiate discussions with Ivan V. Arkhipov, the Soviet adviser in charge of aid to China.58 Yet just as the Chinese were coming to sense the possibility of capitalizing on the Soviet power struggle, Khrushchev was beginning to defeat his domestic rivals, and a decisive episode in his favor came in June I957.59 Toward the end of the month, the political crisis in the Kremlin, as George Kennan has put it, "culminated in the sudden, unprecedented, and dramatic removal" of Presidium members V. M. Molotov, G. M. Malenkov, L. M. Kaganovich, and other top leaders.60 The interesting question for our story is: To what degree, if any, did this victory remove the pressure on Khrushchev to increase military assistance to China? The Chinese were fully aware of the results of the June plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, which ratified the actions against the "anti-Party" group. They also knew that Nikolai Bulganin, who appeared to them to be a friend of China, remained premier even though he had been implicated as a backer of the group. It was not until the following spring that Khrushchev could conclude the affair (on March 27, the Supreme Soviet ousted Bulganin and appointed Khrushchev premier), and in the intervening months, Bulganin is known to have advocated giving a prototype nuclear weapon to Beijing, perhaps merely to curry favor with the Chinese.6 ' For most of this period, at least through the end of I957, as the Soviet specialist Carl Linden notes, Khrushchev continued to benefit from "Chinese support or, more precisely, acquiescence to his leadership." Further, he was in need of "tranquility in the bloc," and his strongest supporter there continued to be the Chinese.62 Despite Khrushchev's June victory, Beijing concluded that China's importance to the Kremlin leader remained undiminished. For a time, this judgment seemed to be vindicated. After contacting his government, Arkhipov on July 20, I9 57, told Nie Rongzhen that Moscow would consider additional defense support, and two months later, Nie led a small negotiating team to the Soviet Union. Under the terms of the resulting New Defense Technical Accord, signed on October I 5, Moscow agreed to supply China a prototype atomic bomb, some missiles, and major industrial equipment related to China's nuclear weapons and missile

12

Technology and Self-Reliance

programs. But no data on Soviet nuclear-powered submarines would be forthcoming; the Kremlin turned down China's explicit request for technical assistance on its future nuclear-sub program.63 Very soon thereafter, the Soviets reneged on their promise to ship a prototype bomb to China, and the ties of comradeship began to unravel. As a further complication, Khrushchev, by now greatly strengthened, regarded cooperation as a two-way street more than at any time since his rise to power, and it was this view that sparked an increasingly divergent dialogue-perhaps parallel monologues would be a better term-between the two nations.64 This was also a time when a singular emphasis on the submarine in Soviet naval doctrine was being felt. 65 Khrushchev recalls in his memoirs that "once we began to produce diesel and nuclear-powered submarines, our navy suggested that we request of the Chinese government permission to build a [long-wave] radio station in China so that we could maintain communications with our submarine fleet operating in the Pacific." Khrushchev fully anticipated that the Chinese would cooperate.66 Beijing, however, was just lifting the opening curtain on the Great Leap Forward, and Mao's admonitions about Soviet influence translated into political paranoia. After Bulganin's ouster in March, the Chinese concluded· that Khrushchev would use his strong internal position "to strengthen his control over fraternal parties and fraternal nations." 67 As one of that number, China would not be spared. By one account, Mao and his colleagues were convinced that "Khrushchev thought it appropriate to gain control of China [now that] he had gained a firm foothold [inside the Kremlin hierarchy]," and had decided that 19 58 was the "time to deal with China." 68 Curiously, Beijing did not grasp the incongruity between this conclusion and its quest for increased military assistance. With the main agreement on strategic weapons behind them, the Chinese, apparently not appreciating the shifting political sands beneath their feet, added to their list of demands for aid in modernizing their armed forces. The Chinese position becomes more understandable, however, when considered in the light of Moscow's response during the first half of 19 58. Simply put, the Soviets appeared to comply with China's demands. Soviet naval officers were instructed to provide their Chinese counterparts with limited information on Soviet advances in submarine technology. The officers suggested that China should place orders for additional naval equipment from the Soviet Union.69 Taking these suggestions as tantamount to a much broader Soviet offer to assist China's naval modernization, Zhou Enlai on June 28, 1958 (the day after Nie Rongzhen submitted his report on the nuclear submarine and

Technology and Self-Reliance

13

SLBM programs), dictated a letter to Moscow specifically requesting the Soviet Union to supply China the designs for new-type submarines (including nuclear-powered submarines) and to teach it how to build them?0 Conceivably, Zhou did not need the spur of the officers' suggestions, for the week before he sent his letter, Mao had taken the commission platform to say, "Besides sustained efforts to strengthen the construction of the army and air force, we must go all out to develop the shipbuilding industry." 71 Zhou would almost certainly have interpreted Mao's statement as mandating a new approach to Moscow. The Soviets for their part read the developments in the first half of I 9 58 as a sure sign of Beijing's willingness to defer to their wishes in the matter of the China-based radio relay center. As early as April 18, Soviet Defense Minister Radian Ia. Malinovskii approached Peng Dehuai with a proposal for a joint Sino-Soviet effort to build a long-wave radio transmission center (as well as a radio-receiving installation) between 19 58 and 1962.72 The Soviet Union would supply 70 percent of the funds for the two installations. Not fully appreciating how important the long-wave installation in China was to Soviet submarines operating in the Pacific, Beijing dismissed Malinovskii's proposal as an effort to "control our country's intelligence and classified communications." 73 For the Chinese, the issue was one of ownership and sovereignty. Peng thus informed the Soviet Ministry of Defense on June 12 that China agreed to build these facilities but would do so at its own expense using Soviet technical aid. On July II, Moscow fired off a draft accord that called for the joint administration of the facilities with the Soviets paying the full cost. Beijing then drastically amended the draft and mailed it back to Moscow: the Chinese would build and own the station and would place orders only for equipment and materiel that they could not manufacture. As the tensions rose and draft met counterdraft, neither Khrushchev nor Mao Zedong was able to demonstrate finesse or sensitivity. To make matters worse, the Soviet Union chose this moment to make an additional proposal in the way of naval cooperation. Zhou Enlai's letter of June 28 requesting greater technical assistance for the navy led Moscow to assume that the Chinese were ready to deal, and that it had only to devise a compromise. In July, Soviet Ambassador Yudin met with Liu Shaoqi to review China's request for help on Project 09, and he took the occasion to float the idea of a joint submarine flotilla. Some days later, on July 21, at the moment of maximum misperception and miscommunication, Yudin called on Mao? 4 Invoking Khrushchev's name, Yudin broached the notion to the Chairman himsel£.75 Mao responded by asking, "First of all, we should determine the guiding principle.

Technology and Self-Reliance

[Do you mean that] we should create [such a submarine flotilla] with your aid ... or you won't give us aid?" At this point, Peng Dehuai, who was present at the meeting, shifted the subject to repeat China's continued opposition to the radio station, saying, "the ownership should belong to us; otherwise it is politically unacceptable." Mao added that it was surely "inappropriate to organize a military 'cooperative.' " 76 The following day, Yudin and Mao met again. The Chinese leader preempted the conversation and told the Soviet ambassador that he was rescinding Zhou Enlai's request for Soviet technical assistance to the navy. He reiterated his opposition to the long-wave radio station and said that "the creation of a joint submarine flotilla is a political problem that involves [China's] sovereignty.'' Looking directly at Yudin, Mao exclaimed: "On political [grounds], even half a finger is out of the question .... You can say that I am a nationalist.... If you say so, I will have to say that you have expanded Russian nationalism to the Chinese seacoast.'' In his cable to Khrushchev after the meeting, Yudin stated that when the Soviet proposals were presented, "Mao [had] shouted, 'How dare you suggest such a thing! This proposal is an insult to our national pride and our sovereignty!' " 77 Here again the timing of the Chinese position is curious, for this confrontation with Moscow came just as the Politburo was deliberating Nie Rongzhen's recommendation to commence Project 09. It was on July 28 that the Central Military Commission issued the authorizing edict. At the instant of decision, the Chinese leaders were clearly basing their action on the hope of getting full-scale Soviet technical assistance, and the commission's approval prompted Beijing in the next few days to make yet another formal request for help on the nuclear submarine project?8 Imposed Self-Reliance Beijing's request was made during Khrushchev's second visit to China, from July 3I to August 3, 1958?9 Khrushchev had elected to fly to the People's Republic after receiving Yudin's cable concerning the July 21-22 meetings. The Presidium of the Soviet Central Committee had met in urgent session, and at the end of its deliberations, Khrushchev and other senior leaders decided to make a secret visit to China as soon as it could be managed. The Soviet leader was beginning to grasp that the issue was shifting from the implementation of cooperation to the preservation of the alliance itsel£.80 The Chinese, needing assistance on the submarine project now more than ever, agreed to the visit. They expected Khrushchev to press for the long-wave radio station and the joint submarine flotilla but hoped he had

Technology and Self-Reliance

come to deal.81 And, by his own account, the Soviet leader did want to negotiate. Nevertheless, Khrushchev would not budge on providing direct support to the nuclear submarine project and dismissed the whole idea with a wave of his hand. His stated reason was that China would not be able to complete the project because of its backward industrial technologies and scientific base.82 Though insulted, Mao responded with feigned indifference: "If we don't agree [with your proposal for a joint flotilla] then we won't have a nuclear submarine. I don't care [meiyou guanxi]." 83 Although Mao had failed to change Khrushchev's mind, the Soviet leader still hoped to move Mao and kept talking. On the subject of the radio station, Khrushchev said that Moscow had no intention of violating China's sovereignty. He blamed his defense minister for failing to get instructions from the Central Committee. Mao said that what he wanted was credits, and Khrushchev, agreeing, said he could also supply technical advice and equipment. China would build the station with Soviet help, and the matter was settled.84 On the question of a joint flotilla, Khrushchev accused his ambassador of making mistakes in transmitting official messages.85 Here Khrushchev's memoirs are misleading. He says only that "our navy wanted to refuel our submarines and to give our crews shore leave at the ports along the Chinese coast." 86 The two leaders in fact argued about a reciprocal arrangement proposed by Khrushchev under which Chinese subs could be based at Soviet Arctic Ocean facilities, and the Soviet Union would be allowed to lease the navy base at Liishun and the city of Dalian for its subs.87 Mao summarily dismissed this proposal, and Khrushchev notes that he "couldn't object too strenuously to Mao's reaction. Perhaps we'd been a bit hasty in suggesting that he give us a submarine base in China." 88 The Taiwan Strait crisis a few weeks later cast still another shadow over Sino-Soviet relations and further confused the dispute on naval cooperation.89 Even before his July visit, Khrushchev had gotten wind of Beijing's preparations for an attack on the offshore islands controlled by Taiwan.90 Thus, during the visit, he shifted the conversation from naval matters to a probing of China's intentions toward the Nationalists. He especially wanted Mao to tell him what means might be taken to solve the Taiwan issue and reportedly asked him: "When will Taiwan be put under the jurisdiction of China?"91 Mao evaded the question but, Khrushchev records, asked for "considerable military aid ... in order to stage a military operation against Chiang Kai-shek." Khrushchev adds that he gave the Chinese what they asked for in the belief they were planning a decisive action against Taiwan, and that he "made no move to try to restrain our Chinese comrades." 92 Chinese sources do not dispute this Soviet account

r6

Technology and Self-Reliance

but emphasize that Khrushchev worried about a possible Soviet-U.S. nuclear confrontation in the event of a Sino-U.S. showdown. By his own admission, Mao did misjudge the possibility of a forceful American response as the PLA buildup opposite Taiwan began in August.93 Despite the directness of their conversations on Taiwan, the Chinese in fact did mislead their guests and did not inform the Soviet delegation of their decision to shell Quemoy on August 23, 1958, just three weeks after the delegation departed.94 When, in September, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko flew to Beijing to find out firsthand what was happening, the Chinese somewhat disingenuously told him the Soviet Ministry of Defense should have received the full facts through its advisers at the Chinese ministry. They added that China itself would bear responsibility for the consequences in case of an all-out war with the United States, and that the Soviet Union need not be involved even if the United States employed tactical nuclear weapons against China.95 Gromyko many years later recalled Mao's recommendation if the crisis should lead to an American invasion of China. U.S. forces should be lured deep into the mainland, he allegedly said, and then Soviet nuclear weapons could be used to annihilate them ("Only when the Americans are right in the central provinces should you give them everything you've got").96 However, official Soviet documents discredit Gromyko's account.97 By most Chinese (and Western) accounts, it was only after Khrushchev's fears of war had been set to rest that, on September 7, 1958, he warned Washington that an attack on China would be tantamount to one on the Soviet Union.98 Although the sequence of events in the crisis appears to confirm the widely held view that Khrushchev was timid under fire, the facts appear to speak otherwise and in support of Khrushchev's own account. Ambassador Liu Xiao, a leading Chinese official who witnessed these events, notes that he was summoned to an interview with Khrushchev on September r6. By this time, the shelling of Quemoy had gone on for more than three weeks, and though the intensity of the bombardment had waned, the Soviet leader apparently thought the preparations for a Chinese invasion were still on track. Though the massive U.S. response that followed clearly forced Mao to scrap his plans, he apparently thought that this was none of Khrushchev's concern. Thus, Khrushchev contends that he had been tricked into providing "aircraft, long-range artillery, and air force advisors" for a projected invasion of Nationalist-held islands in the Taiwan Strait that the Chinese had no intention of carrying out.99 That the Soviet leader was indeed in the dark on Mao's change of heart seems obvious from his offer to Liu to send China air support (newly developed Tu-r6 bombers, according to Liu; "interceptor squadrons," ac-

Technology and Self-Reliance

17

cording to Khrushchev). These planes, manned by Soviet pilots, would be fully armed with missiles "in order to gain air domination over the Taiwan Strait." Ten days later, when Mao refused the proposal to station these planes at Chinese airfields, Khrushchev was astounded. 100 He wrote: "When we offered to station our interceptor squadrons on their territory, [the Chinese] reacted in an extremely odd way. They made it clear that our offer had offended them." 101 Yet the following month, the Kremlin decided to renew its program of conventional naval assistance, still hoping that the era of cooperation would continue. The two governments concluded a major agreement in February whereby Moscow would license the building of five types of warships and two types of naval weapons. The five types of warships would be conventional-powered ballistic missile submarines, medium-sized attack submarines, two sizes of missile craft, and hydrofoil torpedo boats. The weapons were a submarine-to-surface missile and a ship-to-ship missile.102 This was the last and most important naval agreement between the two countries, and most of the current Chinese fleet is still based on ships built under its terms. The imported technologies, though not specifically related to Project 09, gave the Chinese valuable hardware and knowledge on missile propulsion and guidance and aspects of missile submarine construction. On his third visit to Beijing a year later, in October 1959, Khrushchev could see nothing to show for his "generosity," and his anger at the Chinese over the 1958 events had grown. Four months before, on June 20, 1959, it should be noted, Moscow had informed China of its two-year suspension of assistance on nuclear weapons, thereby reversing its promise to supply a prototype atomic bomb and related technical data.103 Now, in a sevenhour face-to-face talk with Mao Zedong, Khrushchev blamed him for the "Soviet troubles" caused by the Chinese decision to shell Quemoy and Matsu and then to back down without notifying Moscow. 104 Their exchanges were angry, even insulting! 05 Worst of all, from Khrushchev's point of view, his public bravado followed by his inaction was certain to compromise his credibility in future Soviet-American confrontations. Khrushchev told Mao that the Taiwan events the year before had "created a tense atmosphere indicating that an all-out war was imminent" but, he implied, had gained nothing and weakened Moscow's position.106 An official history of Chinese foreign affairs notes that "facts occurring thereafter indicate that Khrushchev took to heart the Chinese behavior [before and during the 19 58 Taiwan Strait crisis] ."to7 Developments by October 1959 should have communicated Khru-

18

Technology and Self-Reliance

shchev's real message to the Chinese, but apparently it never got through. The message was: we can trust you with conventional but not nuclear weapons. He rebuffed Chinese requests for further help on strategic nuclear forces, and none was forthcoming thereafter. The combination of Moscow's refusal to provide help on Project 09 and its earlier generosity on less sophisticated and shorter-range arms should have made its position on aid amply clear. Moreover, in October 1958, when the head of the Chinese delegation, the navy's political commissar, asked to visit a Soviet nuclear submarine, the Kremlin turned him down and thereby signaled the distinction that it was trying to draw between long- and short-range delivery systems, especially those that could carry nuclear weapons. The point was lost on the commissar, however, and only later did the Chinese finally accept the reality and abandon their dream of Soviet assistance on Project 09.108 Thus, even after the showdown between Mao and Khrushchev in July and the Taiwan Strait debacle in August 19 58, the possibility of Soviet assistance on the project was not completely foreclosed in the Chinese mind, and during Khrushchev's visit in October 1959, China, for the last time, again pressed for Moscow's help. And this time Khrushchev's grounds for refusal were even more offensive than before. In a meeting with Zhou Enlai and senior military officials he said, "I don't consider that you are able to develop such complicated technologies as those required for a nuclear submarine. You don't have to spend so much money [to develop this project]. Once the Soviet Union has nuclear submarines you will already have them. We can create a joint [submarine] flotilla." When Mao learned of Khrushchev's rejection, he grew indignant: "We will have to build nuclear submarines even if it takes us 1o,ooo years!" 109 For Mao, the illusion of Soviet assistance had finally evaporated, even though some on both sides, especially in the Kremlin, hoped to restore relations as late as 1962.110 His only path for Project 09 was one of selfreliance. The Search for Reality

We have reviewed the naval decisions of 1958 and 1959, both in Beijing and within the Sino-Soviet alliance, in order to establish the context within which the nuclear-powered submarine program began. At a time of intense political activism and anti-intellectual, anti-technological dogmatism, the leadership that launched the Great Leap Forward authorized this new strategic weapons project and the acceleration of several others. By early 1960, the nuclear submarine and missile projects had gained solid political backing and organizational underpinning. The transfer of

Technology and Self-Reliance

19

technology from the Soviet Union, though selective and ultimately contentious, had raised the levels of competence and consciousness in a variety of sophisticated disciplines and in the high command. The imports had much to build on: the government's financial commitment to the enterprise, significant military industrial development, the mobilization of scientists and staff, and valuable first-step experiments. Critical hardware and knowledge had arrived from Moscow, the nuclear warhead project was already five years old and four years from initial success, shipyards had been refurbished and set to work, and the liabilities of dependency had been cast aside. On a scale of one to ten, the baseline for the projects, which was one or two in July 19 58, had moved up a notch or so. The political hurricane in progress, with worse to come, was not buffeting a fragile undertaking. The emphasis in the research-based submarine project was technological and professional, and this priority was to shape a broad spectrum of future efforts toward defense development and industrial modernization. From the perspective of these efforts, the mass campaigns that have dominated our view of the rest of the Mao era from the second half of 1958 through the next two decades recede into the background. Another image of Chinese political-strategic realities in these formative years begins to emerge as we explore the nation's quest for one of the world's most modern technologies. This is a story of politics and technology in collision. 111 China's quest for strategic seapower coincided with the decades of turmoil during which Mao Zedong assumed that politics could change both society and technology and thereby integrate and activate them. At the same time, he made selected institutions in that society responsible for creating the strategic weapons systems, and it was the fruits of that labor, not the misery inflicted in the name of high politics, that symbolized the more permanent direction of the Chinese nation. We focus on the nuclear-powered submarine and submarine-launched ballistic missile programs in this study to show how a major hightechnology undertaking evolved over the next quarter-century, years of social upheaval and policy vacillation. The decades-long effort illustrates how China experimented with new forms of civil-military relations and industrial organizations, how those relations and institutions evolved over time, how teams of military-technical experts pursued highly complex programs of industrial and weapons development despite intense ideological opposition, and how this process influenced the evolution of the navy and its strategies. An understanding of those strategies, which we discuss in the final chap-

20

Technology and Self-Reliance

ters, would help make sense of the progress of the two projects and their maneuvers to dodge ever dangerous political quicksands. We have deferred that discussion to the last on the grounds that China's current strategic doctrines are the product, not the cause, of the projects' political-technical evolution. Some readers may prefer to turn to the concluding chapters next in order to have something of a road map through the maze of programs, people, organizations, and events that follow. For those who choose this course, however, we offer a word of caution: none of the participants had this road map, and many lost their way. The strategic doctrines did not shape the projects nor provide a coherent context for them. For the players, the history that follows was complex and often confusing both because there were so many unknowns and because the context was forever oscillating between dedication and disaster. The drama provided the lucky ones moments of exhilaration and lasting personal satisfaction, even though some now find it hard to relate to the ending. In this story, the sufferers and deliverers often changed places, and reading the last two chapters may provide little insight into the villains and heroes. The doctrines emerged as a response to domestic dilemmas even as the projects proceeded in fits and starts and sometimes stopped altogether. But proceed they did, and in the final analysis, they modernized an entire sector of the country's industrial base, increased the leadership's confidence in its security policies, and outlasted and helped discredit political adventurism within an entire generation of China's best minds. We shall argue that the technical world of the strategic weapons programs, while interacting with politics, achieved two major successes. At great cost, it built the country's underlying military industrial base and a progressive series of advanced weapons. That was its first achievement. But, within the strategic weapons programs, alternative organizations and a quite different global view arose to replace them. At one level, as we shall see, these programs became a world apart, secret bastions in a world gone mad. Yet their domain was simply too large and demanding to disengage entirely. In the end, the programs helped define the limits of politics and the nation's objectives even as they catapulted China into the nuclear age. That was their second and perhaps more fundamental achievement.

PART I

The Submarine

TWO

Nuclear Propulsion

As work on Project 09 commenced at the Institute of Atomic Energy in r 9 58, the Chinese were faced with the most challenging technological task ever undertaken by the nation. Most of the skills, data, and equipment needed to begin the project were scattered throughout the country, and virtually no one involved knew what was required or where to find it. With the populace caught up in the Great Leap Forward and its aftermath, talent and resources were in increasingly short supply or simply beyond the institute's reach. The development of technology on the contemplated scale forced vast sectors of the industrial base to respond to priorities that were at odds, or at least seemed so to many Party stalwarts, with the Great Leap's "general line," and set in motion a political dynamic that was to shape the future of China's modernization. The Early Hard Years of the Power Plant Program Investigating the existing technologies was, of course, the first step as the project began. The Chinese knew that Soviet and American engineers had equipped their pioneering nuclear submarines with pressurized water reactors (PWR). Early on in their planning, the Chinese decided to construct this type of propulsion system for their own boats, though with a much lower level of enriched fuels than the Americans used.' In the reactor known to them, water acts as coolant, moderator, and heat-transfer agent. The reactor's fuel is uranium dioxide pellets enriched, in the Chinese case, to about 3 percent U235 and clad in a special zirconium alloy. The pressure vessel encasing the reactor core has to be especially strong in order to withstand high pressures, temperatures, and radiation levels. In contrast to a boiling-water reactor, the heat generated in the PWR core is transferred to a secondary loop, where a heat exchanger produces the steam to drive the submarine's propulsion and auxiliary machinery.2

The Submarine The submarine's primary and secondary loop systems are close in design to those found in the PWRs in electrical power plants, but the submarine's must be smaller, safer, more reliable, and more flexible. It must also be capable of surviving in a combat situation, which is to say, be collision-, shock-, and sway-resistant, so as to withstand acute angle changes, especially when surfacing in emergencies. These requirements presented formidable design and engineering problems, as the Chinese quickly learned from Western and Soviet sources of information.3 They decided almost from the beginning to build a loop-type reactor using low-enriched uranium fuel, light water as a neutron moderator, and a standard system of control rods to regulate the chain reaction and heat output. Their original plan, to use silver-indium-cadmium rods, was eventually dropped in favor of hafnium rods.4 Designing the other parts of the loop system also proved harder than the planners had anticipated. The water in the primary loop system (including part of the heat exchangers, circulating pumps, and piping) is highly radioactive. The secondary loop that drives the turbine must not be radioactive, but the Chinese had serious problems devising a safe exchange system between the two loops. Early on, they felt the iron fist of Murphy's Law. The rest of the propulsion proved somewhat less difficult in the design phase but equally formidable in the engineering and construction stages. In Chinese subs, the steam in the secondary loop connects to twin propellers via the turbines and gearboxes. After the steam in the secondary loop releases its energy to the propulsion system, it passes through condensers, and circulating pumps return the resulting water to the heat exchangers (steam generators). For emergency power, the Chinese decided to equip their 09 submarines with two auxiliary diesel-electric generators. 5 The designers wrote specifications for a robust power plant whose output could vary over a wide range within a brief space of time. This requirement imposed the need for high flexibility and reliability for the control rods' servo drives. Meeting it turned out to be the main technical obstacle to the success of the power plant program.6 In October 1958, within weeks after receiving the directive to build a nuclear-powered submarine with these requirements, the IAE created the Reactor Engineering Research Section and launched the first studies on the propulsion system/ The timing seemed unpromising, coinciding as it did with the dramatic upsurge of the Great Leap Forward. The fundamental contradictions between the objectives of the Great Leap and Project 09 might have been rationalized away in the inaugural meetings in Beijing, but they could not be so easily dismissed at the IAE's working levels. Many

Nuclear Propulsion

25

members of the institute had by then succumbed to the society's political fever, strongly undermining serious research. Nevertheless, most of the project's experts, even while closely monitoring the political winds swirling through the institute, felt personally insulated by the project and used its high priority to protect their technical work from the mass hysteria of the moment. Their goal was to move from basic research to the building of a full-scale prototype power plant on land; all else was secondary. The prototype would be used to conduct simulations, as well as to train qualified designers. IAE Deputy Director Li Yi and two technical specialists assumed oversight responsibility for the reactor research section's program,8 and the three authorized preliminary studies on reactor theory and the prototype's design. By the end of the year, during the most chaotic months of the Great Leap, they managed to recruit 200 scientists and technicians, many of them recent college graduates, and ordered them to begin writing plans for the components of the proposed reactor prototype and related equipment.9 Most of the research section's specialists spent the first six months of I 9 59 poring over fragmentary information from foreign textbooks, reports, and periodicals. They then spent a year hammering out the detailed specifications for the plant. The result, "Design Plan for the Nuclear Power Plant of the Submarine (Draft)," was submitted to the Defense Science and Technology Commission under Nie Rongzhen for review and action in June 1960. 10 Though by then the political situation had gone from bad to worse-the imposition of the rural commune system and other politically motivated schemes had by now brought the national economy to the brink of collapse, and Soviet advisers were getting ready to pull out of all strategic weapons facilities, including the institute itsel£11-the commission readily approved the document and took note of the other achievements in the program. To get the project moving, it then organized a scientific cooperation network (keyan xiezuo wang) composed of many research institutes and organs of higher learning. These bodies were assigned to start full-scale explorations on the main subjects related to the reactor program: nuclear physics, hydraulics, reactor construction and engineering, pressure vessels, manufacturing materials, automatic controls, steam turbines, condensers, and water pumps. Various industrial departmeri.ts accepted a supplementary round of assignments to test-manufacture key items of reactor equipment, other special materials, and instruments." In theory, the networking would help pull all of the project's pieces together into a coherent whole. But Nie's commission unintentionally undercut its good intentions by

The Submarine pursuing a big-budget policy of creating redundant research-and-development organizations to multiply the chances for success. Under commission pressure, the Second Ministry of Machine Building had already sponsored discussions on the construction of the prototype power plant and conducted a survey of possible locations for a related research base; formed ties with several additional scientific research institutes and other organs under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and universities and encouraged them to begin exploratory studies on reactor physics and engineering; and ordered its industrial departments to learn how to produce the equipment, materials, and instruments required for the prototype's construction. Over the next months, this cumbersome and costly system could boast some progress, but the redundant organizations refused to cooperate in practice and vied for scarce personnel, materiel, and money at a time of increasing political and economic distress. In a period later to be dubbed the three hard years, most institutes were experiencing severe food shortages, drastic funding cutbacks, and the drying up of technical data from the Soviet Union. The need for consolidation and streamlining was becoming painfully evident. For this reason, right after the cutoff of Soviet technical assistance in August 1960, Nie's commission decided to consolidate some of its facilities and to try to shield them from further disruption. For example, at the time the IAE had begun its exploratory research on the power plant's fuel components, the Metals Research Institute in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, had also formed a section for studying reactor fuel rods. Initially headed by Zhang Peilin, a key scientist in the nuclear program, this section pioneered in designing the first 09 rods. 12 Zhang's staff had come from a variety of disciplines, including reactor physics, hydraulics, metallurgy, nuclear fuels, machining, and chemical engineeringP But personnel from these disciplines were in short supply, and in both Shenyang and Beijing, the researchers were dangerously exposed to the political pressures being directed against all experts. To deflect these pressures, Nie's commission had the relevant groups from the IAE's Metal Physics Research Section transferred to the Second Ministry's jurisdiction in the late summer of 1960 and removed to the ministry's partially completed Nuclear Fuel Component Plant (Plant 202) in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. After the plant established its own Component Research Section in March 1961, it took over all research and development on the fuel rod from the Shenyang institute and absorbed the institute's personnel. 14 Secluded in the Gobi Desert, the plant could give unimpeded attention and greater coherence to work on the reactor components. The Baotou plant's research section was assigned to manufacture and

Nuclear Propulsion

27

test various types of fuel and control components and to investigate a series of technological processes such as uranium chemistry and uranium smelting.15 Over the years, the Chinese encountered endless obstacles in the fabrication of the reactor components, and Plant 202 cooperated with an array of other institutes throughout the nation to overcome them. The mechanisms of cooperation in the main did the job, though not without the kind of conflict and foot-dragging that is common among institutions in competing "systems." 16 Other difficulties also stood in the way. At that time, because China had no high-powered computers, most of the scientific calculations were done by hand. It usually took over a month for several technicians working on desk-top calculators to complete the computations for one program. For example, they had to calculate the power distribution coefficients for the entire-life fuel components under conditions of full- and reduced-power operations, and this batch of computations took many weeks to complete.17 Each of the tests led to new batches of preliminary blueprints for the power plant, and changes piled on changes. As a further complication, the various research organs were tasked to formulate design plans for both the land-based prototype power plant and the submarine power plant itself simultaneously. After these organs had prepared the necessary plans, China's nuclear instrument and equipment manufacturing system under the Second Ministry was assigned to provide all the components required for making the power plants. Tough as it was to manufacture the equipment and parts for the plutonium-production reactor in Gansu, the two power plants presented an even greater challenge, Chinese specialists assert. 18 Suspension of Project 09

The Chinese authorities had not attached much importance to developing a strong support system for the nuclear industry in the 19 5os. Because Soviet industrial assistance, including the provision of advanced machines and instruments, appeared substantial and dependable, they focused most of their efforts on constructing production facilities and installing the Soviet-supplied nuclear equipment in them. In this way, the Second Ministry acquired the Soviet-designed Dalian Machinery Plant, which for years was the only large-scale plant under its jurisdiction capable of fabricating heavy-duty nuclear industrial equipment. 19 The ministry also had at its disposal the Shanghai Electronic Instrument Factory and the Jian'an Instrument Factory in Sichuan Province, which manufactured military radiation indicators and nuclear testing instruments. None of these facilities was equipped to handle the special needs of Project 09 on its own.

The Submarine Facing the collapse of its relations with the Soviet Union, Beijing immediately identified the problem of instrumentation as one of the most serious bottlenecks in the power plant program. On July 16, 1961, the Party Central Committee issued a document entitled "Resolution on Certain Questions to Strengthen the Construction of Atomic Energy Industry," which concentrated on just such bottlenecks. In response, the Second Ministry held meetings to consider every conceivable means for upgrading the nuclear instrument and equipment manufacturing system and, soon thereafter, created its own Equipment Manufacturing Bureau. By 1963, this bureau had assumed jurisdiction over a dozen or more industrial facilities, including the Shanghai Electronic Instrument Factory and the Jian'an Instrument Factory?0 All this reorganization effort, however, had a high price tag at a time of great economic hardship. The crisis of the three hard years had deepened after the Soviet withdrawal in mid-1960, and the economy continued its downward spiral.21 In that year, compared with 1957, the total value of agricultural output decreased by 30 percent, and grain output dropped by 26 percent (over 51 million tons)? 2 On September 30, 1960, the Central Committee approved the "Report on Controlled Quotas for the National Economic Plan of 1961," which advanced the "eight-character" principles of "readjustment, consolidation, reinforcement, and improvement" for the revitalization of the national economy? 3 The committee's Ninth Plenum, meeting the following January, reaffirmed these austerity principles?4 From July 18 to August 14, 1961, following up on the plenum's edicts, the National Defense Industrial Commission (NDIC) held an emergency meeting at the resort town of Beidaihe, Hebei Province, one of a series of gatherings to discuss the impact of the crisis on all strategic programs? 5 The principal agenda item for this Defense Industry Conference and its chairman, NDIC Director He Long, quickly became how to prioritize all major defense projects and to justify or minimize their costs. Strong voices were heard in support of modernizing the nation's conventional forces and shelving the strategic programs?6 Nie Rongzhen, an ardent advocate of strategic weapons, joined the argument in August and relayed Lin Biao's earlier directive giving priority to developing the atomic bomb and guided missiles. On August 20, Nie submitted his own report to Mao.27 At the end of a sharp but inconclusive argument, the participants remained committed to their preexisting institutional priorities until Mao announced his own decision: to press forward on the strategic weapons programs, or work on "sophisticated technologies" as he put it. At this, the delegates promptly endorsed a directive to "shorten the battle line, plan tasks in order of priority, and ensure key projects" (suoduan zhanxian,

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29

renwu paidui, quebao zhongdian) as their guideline for defense science, technology, and industry?8 In subsequent conferences, the leadership gave precedence to making the atomic bomb and strategic missiles and postponed other major weapons projects in order "to shorten the battle line." 29 Backed up by He Long, Luo Ruiqing, the chief of the General Staff and head of the National Defense Industry Office (NOlO), took the lead in demanding a halt to Project 09.30 Also reacting, the navy proposed to focus on building and incrementally improving Soviet-designed conventional submarines?' The debate on the 09 project raged for more than a year, with Mao holding out for its continuation. By November 1962, however, Mao, Zhou Enlai, and other members of the leadership found the recommendations for downsizing the project more persuasive.32 At a showdown meeting held about this time, the leaders were told: "In view of the protracted nature of scientific research, you should preserve a smaller but improved core of [technical] strength in order to continue research on key projects." This change would allow the project to capitalize on "the scientific results already achieved and make preparations for the next phase of research once (Project 09] is restarted." The change was not universally favored, however. Politburo member (and Foreign Minister) Chen Yi, for one, opposed the proposed cutbacks in Project 09. Arguing with Chen, Luo Ruiqing asked, "At the moment we can't even assemble a conventional submarine with home-made components. Is there any point to our continuing the nuclear submarine project?" Chen responded: "It is true that our country is very poor. But even a poor man needs a stick to drive away a dog." He thought the program should be pursued "no matter whether it will take us eight years, ten years, or twelve years." 33 In the end, Mao of course prevailed. Smaller but still alive, Project 09 continued. An immediate result of the decision to curtail the project was an immediate and sharp cut in the size of the design groups assigned to the power plant program. Many related research efforts were indefinitely postponed or canceled outright, though some well-advanced research on essential technologies and materials was kept alive. In view of the long lead times for developing and manufacturing some of the vital equipment and materials for the power plant, Beijing directed the pertinent but now smaller facilities to continue R&D on the design of the power plant and the reactor fuel rods and to be ready for the full-scale resumption of Project 09 on short notice.34 As a result, even as the project remained in limbo, the Second Ministry kept a so-person research section at work on the nuclear power plant.35 The ministry paid particular attention to research on the system's highpressure structural mechanics, including the pressure vessel, the main heat

30

The Submarine

exchanger, the main pumps, stabilizers, fuel rod channels, and highpressure valves. Engineers labored to understand the safety factors and reliability coefficients of these main reactor components and undertook detailed analyses and testing of the reactor stress points. At the order of Nie's commission, the section's efforts were supplemented by studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Harbin Civil Construction Institute (later renamed the Harbin Engineering Mechanics Institute) and Institute of Mechanics, the IAE's Reactor Engineering Research Section, the Harbin Institute of Mechanics, and the Second Ministry's Design Bureau.36 By early I965, the economic situation in China had stabilized, and Beijing felt confident enough to rescind the austerity regulations of the three hard years.37 After repeated discussions, the navy, the Second Ministry, and the Seventh Academy of the Sixth Ministry of Machine Building (responsible for warship design) decided that conditions were ripe for a full-scale resumption of the nuclear-powered submarine project.38

The Politics of Competing Reactor Designs By the time work recommenced on Project 09, the IAE's reactor engineering section had been reorganized as the Second Ministry's Reactor Engineering and Technology Institute (Institute I94). 39 As work was proceeding along one path at I94, the ministry turned for assistance to another research organization then working actively on marine reactor studies, the Qinghua University Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology. This institute had been collecting information on the nuclear power plants being built abroad and had settled on the type of system then being planned by the West German firm Gesellschaft fur Kernenergieverwertung in Schiffbau und Schiffahrt mbH (GKSS) as its special interest.40 Located in Hamburg, GKSS had begun building a I 5,ooo-ton ore carrier and research vessel, the Otto Hahn. 41 The ship was to be powered by a pressurized water reactor of 38 megawatts (thermal) and was designed to steam I8o,ooo miles at I5 knots per reactor core. Although some of the GKSS studies available to the Chinese concluded that the Otto Hahn would be "both too slow and too small to be profitable," the Qinghua experts believed the GKSS system had definite advantages for submarine propulsion. They theorized that a submarine outfitted with that system would be more robust under wartime conditions and would require far less shielding than would alternative designs. The information division of the Qinghua institute had gleaned enough clues from publications on the Otto Hahn to design their own submarine plant. While the Qinghua engineers were reaching this decision in I96 5, however, specialists in the navy and ministry institutes, including Institute I 94,

Nuclear Propulsion had come to a quite different conclusion. These experts had compiled some details on the nuclear reactors installed on the Soviet icebreaker Lenin.42 Then the largest nuclear ship in the world, the converted Lenin had been launched in 1957, and its designers had emphasized the reliability of the various components under Arctic conditions over their size and weight. The conventional wisdom of the time was that this type of power plant would be cheaper and probably easier to build. The issue was whether the Lenin system could be adapted for use in submarines. In an icebreaker, the level of noise is not a serious concern, and the added weight of the pumps, shielding, and reactors is deemed to be an advantage. But these factors could constitute major liabilities for a submarine. Placing the primary pumps outside the main containment vessel would increase the danger of steam and radiation leakage should any of the pumps fail and would require very heavy shielding for safety. The arguments for and against the two systems galvanized into a "struggle between the two designs." The champions of each could see institutional power and money at stake, and those in favor of the Lenin model had the tactical advantages of their location within the Second Ministry and the prestige of a Soviet design. More important, perhaps, they had Peng Shilu, a man with considerable pull at the top, on their side. Peng's father was Peng Pai, a peasant martyr who had led some famous but abortive uprisings in Guangdong Province in the 192os, and whose exploits had greatly impressed Mao. His son, Shilu, had gone to the Soviet Union after 1949 to complete advanced studies in nuclear science, and then returned to take up a senior post in Institute 715 of the Seventh Academy (Warship Research and Design Academy), where he conducted research on the submarine nuclear power plant. Thanks to his father's ties to Zhou Enlai, Peng Shilu was able to keep close connections with the man who headed the powerful Central Special Commission, a body that had been created in November 1962 to foster coordination and cooperation among competing elements of the nuclear industry.4 ' For all the prestige Qinghua University's Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology had gained as the result of its contributions to the plutonium separation program, it had little official clout.44 With the first-level decision resting with the Second Ministry's Party committee, its endorsement of the Lenin-type reactor in late 196 5 came as no surprise. Most of the people involved in the reactor programs surmised that Peng Pai's son had swung the balance in favor of that design. The Qinghua institute, with no formal standing in the military industrial system, could press the matter no further. Nevertheless, Jiang Naixiang, head of the Ministry of Education and

32

The Submarine

president of Qinghua University, believed that the institute still had a role to play in the business of research on nuclear power and authorized the funds for a continuation of its GKSS program. A large reactor pressure vessel was purchased from a Harbin factory, and step by step the institute began to build an alternative prototype to the officially approved system. By the time the Cultural Revolution brought a complete halt to all research, its design effort was virtually completed, but it had managed to make only the barest start on constructing a model.45 Resumption of the Program When the submarine project was at last revived, all control of the program was brought within the regular channels of the military industrial system. On March I3, I965, the leading Party groups of the Second and Sixth ministries sent Zhou Enlai's Central Special Commission a two-part proposal for reorganizing the entire project. The Party leaders wanted, first of all, to expand the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Overall Design Section of the shipbuilding ministry's Seventh Academy into an institute of the same name (Institute 7I9), with administrative jurisdiction over the entire submarine design plan.46 They also wanted to consolidate research on the submarine nuclear power plant then vested in both Institute I94 of the Second Ministry and Institute 7I5 of the Sixth Ministry.< 7 (Institute 7I5, a somewhat murky organization that we encountered in our discussion of Peng Shilu, was located in Beijing and reported to the Seventh Academy.) The Party leaders proposed to move Institute 7I 5 (later code-named I 5) to the Second Ministry.48 As this suggests, constant administrative shuffling, renaming, and renumbering characterized all organizational life within Project 09. The Central Special Commission approved both proposals at its eleventh meeting (March 20, I965). It also ordered the Second Ministry to present a concrete plan on the construction of the land-based prototype power plant by the end of the year and to complete the actual construction by I970.49 In the next several months, the commission mulled over proposals from the Second and Sixth ministries on what type of nuclear-powered submarine to build and where to construct the land-based plant. Finally, on August I 5, at its thirteenth meeting, it officially restarted Project 09. It also unwittingly started a new dispute when it adopted three principles suggested by the ministries. Two were innocuous enough: to carry out coordination and cooperation in all project work and to build the first submarine for experimental as well as for combat use. But the third raised, for the first time, the possibility of concentrating on one vessel at a time, and

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33

suggested working on the attack boat before proceeding to the missile submarine. Not everyone agreed on that order of precedence, and the debate on which type of sub to develop first continued among senior officials until December 1966, when Nie Rongzhen's Defense Science and Technology Commission formally took over the NDIO's responsibility for supervising the strategic weapons development programs in December 1966 and endorsed the Central Special Commission's proposal. Work on the attack submarine (09-1) program would come first. The Central Special Commission also approved the Second Ministry's choice of a plant site for the land-based prototype at its thirteenth meeting, and groundbreaking began at Jiajiang, Sichuan, the following month. Three years later, the Jiajiang Institute (by then called the Southwest Reactor Engineering Research and Design Academy, or First Academy) would be China's largest base for the nuclear power plant program.50 With this site finally approved, the various departments concerned submitted reports on the creation or expansion of a series of related projects.51 The Central Special Commission endorsed the choice of the Bohai Shipyard (Plant 431 in Huludao, Liaoning Province) for building the nuclearpowered submarine, and a workshop attached to Plant 202 in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, for producing the reactor fuel rods.52 It also picked the places for the submarine operating bases, for processing the cladding metals, for manufacturing the torpedoes, missiles, sonar, and navigation and communication systems, and for testing torpedoes and missiles. These locations settled, Premier Zhou and the special commission approved their listing as high priority projects. The funds, materials, and equipment required for finishing them would now become available.53 After years of delay, the project was back in business. But it was a troubled start, for at just that moment in late 1965, a grand power struggle began in Beijing. For Project 09, the struggle's decisive episode proved to be the ouster of Luo Ruiqing. The Purge of Luo Ruiqing We turn the clock back to the three hard years for an understanding of this episode. At that time of national crisis, it will be recalled, as military priorities were reassessed, new bureaucracies were formed, and others abandoned. When the Fifteen-Member Special Commission was created in November 1962, leaders associated with Luo Ruiqing won additional powers; Luo himself was appointed the commission's powerful office director. His National Defense Industry Office (NDIO), which had been organized in November 1961,54 had strong links to the Central Military Commission (where Luo was the secretary general) and to the General Staff

34

The Submarine

(which Luo headed), and it now took command of the Second and Third ministries and the Fifth Academy (in charge of the missile program). In the bureaucratic reshuffling, the NDIO gained authority at Nie Rongzhen's expense. Below the bureaucratic shifts lay a deeper issue, the fate of specialists in the Chinese political-military system. From 1949 to the 196os, the Party's twin policies of indoctrinating and exploiting China's scientists and engineers had resulted in cyclical periods of "anti-rightist" repression and "blooming and contending" relaxation.55 During the opening period of the strategic weapons programs in the mid-r9sos, an anti-rightist campaign had preceded the early phases of the Great Leap Forward and then intensified. In general, the combination of repression and economic disaster swiftly demoralized China's defense experts, among others, and directly hampered their performance in the strategic programs.56 In the winter of 1961, Nie Rongzhen joined other leaders, notably Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi, in promoting yet another cycle of relaxation. It is Nie's part of the story that interests us here. From late 1960 on, Nie had been pressing the Politburo to acknowledge and restrict the adverse influence of ideological campaigns and outright repression on the advanced weapons effort.57 Swamped by political meetings and denounced by Party activists, defense scientists and engineers were devoting less than half their day to professional work. Many in the atomic and missile programs received the brunt of the anti-intellectual criticism, and Nie, recognizing the seriousness of the experts' demoralization, visited the Fifth Academy and various defense-related institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to see what he could do about it.5 8 His investigation resulted in a report to the Central Committee entitled "Fourteen Suggestions on the Present Work of the Research Institutes of Natural Sciences (Draft)." These so-called 14 articles and a companion paper, "Draft Provisional Regulations for Work in the Institutions of Higher Learning Directly Under the Ministry of Education" (or, by another source, "Sixty Articles on Work in Institutions of Higher Learning"), became the pivotal documents in his campaign to ease the pressures on intellectuals and experts.59 More than a decade later, Deng Xiaoping would note that though Mao had issued many instructions related to education and intellectuals before the Cultural Revolution that "were essentially meant to be encouraging and stimulating," he had gone "overboard in some of his remarks" after 1957 and had only recouped when he endorsed Nie's two sets of articles.60 In July 1961, in notifying the Party faithful of its approval of the first set, the Central Committee admitted that "quite a few comrades" had "adopted a one-sided approach to knowledge and the intellectuals, and the

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handling of related matters in an oversimplified and crude way also [had] become more widespread." The 14 articles, as a remedy, stressed the importance of achieving positive research results and "maintaining stability in scientific research work and ensuring adequate time for it." 61 Nie regarded the leadership's approval of the 14 articles as only a first step in protecting the integrity of China's scientists and engineers. Early the next year, in February 1962, he joined Premier Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi in a National Conference on Scientific and Technological Work in Guangzhou, and the participants, taking a leaf from Mao's writings about friends and enemies, proclaimed that China's intellectuals belonged to the non-enemy working class, a category of prestige and relative safety.62 All the main speakers praised the intellectuals for their contributions to the nation, but in his own address, Nie went even further, urging the country's experts to give free voice to their grievances and throw themselves selflessly into their scientific endeavors and criticizing the exaggerations of the Party's propaganda machinery during the Great Leap Forward and its unrealistic call for instant success.63 Although the scientists appreciated the message, they remained skeptical. They had been victimized by promises of support before and could not fail to notice Mao's ever-more urgent calls for "revolutionization," class struggle, and self-reliance. The intellectuals, not surprisingly, feared the wrath of Mao more than they believed the exhortations of Zhou, Chen Yi, and Nie, and they did not have long to wait before Mao struck back. In 1963, the Chairman began his counterattack by calling on the nation's intellectuals to attack Soviet "revisionism" and to join his campaign to foster "new-born forces" among the younger generation.64 As Mao saw it, only the more ideological units of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) under Lin Biao seemed to grasp the need for "revolutionization," and in return for Lin's support, Mao called on his countrymen to learn from and emulate the PLA. During this period of the early r 96os, the strategic units under Nie Rongzhen had successfully tested first-generation missiles and, in October 1964, the atomic bomb. But Lin's lieutenants recognized that, however close China was to having enough retaliatory capability to deprive the superpowers of their blackmail potential, it was still precariously vulnerable. They thus made a virtue of necessity and wholeheartedly endorsed Mao's traditional military thinking with its stress on the importance of People's War. Lin Biao publicly embraced the concept of People's War in a landmark essay on September 3, 1965.65 Even though China was by then risking a confrontation with the United States by supplying substantial aid to North Vietnam in its fight against South Vietnam, Lin self-consciously echoed

The Submarine Mao's views on the need for protracted, self-reliant struggle, and in the months that followed he found an ally in Nie Rongzhen.66 Chief Lin (Lin zong), as he was called, had staked out the ground to begin his assault on his own adversaries, and his initial target was Luo Ruiqing. Luo had aligned himself with Liu Shaoqi, China's president and titular commander-in-chief, and kept close ties with Party GeneralSecretary Deng Xiaoping and Marshal He Long-all opponents of Mao's radicalism. But Lin's grudge against Luo was more personal than ideological.67 As we have seen, after Luo became chief of the General Staff, he began to bypass Lin in the chain of command and to report directly to Mao, Zhou Enlai, and He Long. Though he later claimed he acted on Mao's advice because Lin in 19 59 was in failing health, the practice continued long after Lin had recovered and deeply offended him.68 In Lin's eyes, Luo's transgressions went beyond mere insubordination. Part of Luo's responsibilities as secretary-general of the Central Military Commission under He Long's stewardship was the granting of ranks.69 To his later misfortune, when Lin Biao's wife, Ye Qun, came forward torequest the rank of senior colonel, Luo refused and appointed her to a lower rank instead?0 Ultimately, it was the human side of Luo's policies that proved his Achilles' heel and made him the first prey for Mao and Lin Biao. In November 1965, when Mao first revealed to his Politburo colleagues his plans for a campaign to revolutionize the society, several of the top leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Peng Zhen, consorted to stop or at least circumvent him. They protested what they regarded as the Chinese leader's intent to unleash societal chaos once again, but Mao regarded their behavior as "rebelling while kneeling" (that is, appearing to support him but actually opposing him). Angered at this disloyalty and searching for a way to retaliate, Mao invited a number of his close friends to his home in Hangzhou in East China. The idea that most attracted him, as it turned out, was put forward by none other than Lin Biao's wife, Ye Qun71 Ye submitted a letter from her husband that set forth damning accusations against Luo Ruiqing.72 Although Mao apparently did not suspect Luo's loyalty, he did take into account Luo's influence over the military and the fact that he was close to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping but far less popular than Liu or Deng. In addition to the hostility prompted by Luo's undermining of both Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen, many feared him because his influence over the intelligence and internal security services had carried over from his days as head of public security. Purging Luo, while dangerous, would weaken Mao's rivals and would be met with a sigh of

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relief by many of the elite in the capital. Mao's political instincts led him to take Ye's charges at face value and to acquiesce in the moves against Luo. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, injecting herself in the plot, phoned Lin Biao and told him to come to Mao's residence for a private chat with the Chairman. Although the published record of the ensuing conversation is somewhat suspect, its general outline coincides with what we know of Mao's personality and behavior. Mao's real goal was to banish Politburo member Peng Zhen, thereby isolating Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and eliminating for all practical purposes any further resistance to the planned political campaign. Mao hinted as much to Lin and warned him to pay heed to his control over the army. Lin replied, "You can rest assured, Chairman. However, I have my own problem." Mao said, "Just let me know. I will help you solve [the problem]." Lin with some emotion said, "It is Luo Ruiqing. I can't guarantee his obedience. He always tries to put on a rival show in the army so as to seize power. I really can't trust him." Then the deal was struck. Mao would condone the purge of Luo, and Lin would support the upcoming Cultural Revolution and the elimination of Peng. A high-level meeting to oust Luo, an enlarged meeting of the Politburo's Standing Committee, was convened in Shanghai on December 8, 1965, and lasted a week.73 Mao, always the Machiavellian, put Peng Zhen in charge of the case against Luo to prevent Peng from getting any hint of the plot brewing against him?4 Orders to attend the conference reached Luo only on the roth, and Liu Shaoqi and He Long were given only minimal details on the agenda. Upon his arrival in Shanghai, Liu asked He what was going on, and the latter replied, "It is strange. Even you don't know." 75 Peng Zhen, quite unaware that he himself was the real target, evasively told Luo when he left Kunming, "Just go lto Shanghai]. Once you attend the conference, you will know [the purpose]." Luo arrived at the Shanghai air- · port with his wife on the afternoon of the IIth. Guards put the couple under house arrest as soon as they entered the guest compound at West }ianguo Road?6 Denied access to the conference itself, Luo could get only a few hints of what was happening. But he did quickly learn that three allegations were being leveled against him-opposition to Lin Biao; opposition to putting politics in command; and an arrogation of power-for Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping visited him on the very day he arrived, December r r. During that call, and another on the r6th, they instructed Luo to engage in self-criticism, and told him that Mao believed this was something Luo should do even though he might be innocent. Zhou then added a charge of his own-that Luo had failed to show proper respect for China's top

The Submarine military figures, "the marshals," when implementing his decisions. According to Luo's wife, Zhou was vague about which of the ten marshals felt slighted. Meanwhile, Lin Biao detailed Luo's "wrongdoings" to the assembled leaders, and then promptly circulated the meeting's proceedings. On December 17, two days after the conference ended, Luo and his wife were driven under guard to the western suburbs of Beijing, where Luo, still under arrest, wrote out his confession. In it, Luo resigned from all his posts in the Central Military Commission, the Central Special Commission, the NDIO, the General Staff, and all other bodies on which he had served. His career was at an end. Mao's next step was to escalate the campaign with a thorough excoriation of the victim. So it was that the matter of Luo's "mistakes" dominated a meeting of the Central Military Commission held during the period March 4-April 8, 1966. By this time, Peng Zhen was heading a sevenperson work group to handle the charges against Luo. Luo again confessed to errors during these proceedings, which were interrupted by his attempted suicide. On May r6, the Central Committee released the Peng group's report, and so set the emerging Cultural Revolution on the path to an all-out power struggle.77 The message was conveyed to all concerned in a Central Committee circular issued the same day. Calling for vigilance against "representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and various cultural circles," the committee sealed the fate of these representatives when it damned them as "counter-revolutionary revisionists." 78 The work group's report, which was transmitted to all high-level Party and army cadres, detailed Luo's alleged transgressions against Mao and his doctrines. These sins purportedly included Luo's opposition to Mao's views on People's War and on augmenting the militia's role within a reorganized PLA. Of special relevance to this study, the Central Committee focused on Luo's actions during the preceding year that had brought him into direct opposition with Nie Rongzhen, as well as Lin Biao.79 Luo was accused of opposing and refusing to implement "a series of guidelines and policies concerning the question of establishing the national defense industry, national defense science, and technology work," and of denying "the important achievements" of the Defense Science and Technology Commission under Nie. Indeed, even after China had detonated its first atomic bomb in October 1964, he had "frantically attacked our national defense scientific research work as going from data to data, from design to design, without ever completing anything." Moreover, Lin Biao and Nie had quite rightly disagreed with Luo's "assertion that the system

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of military representatives [set up in 19 50 and extended in 1964] should be quickly abolished in national defense industry." 80 Ignoring their warning that "changing the system of military representatives should be thought over carefully," Luo had expressed his willingness to "take that risk." Although Nie Rongzhen may have had his own reservations about that system, any risk-taking on his part would have jeopardized his defense programs, not just himself. Having won a measure of protection for the scientific establishment and his defense objectives with his 14 articles, Nie would now have to switch tactics to keep what he had gained. He would have to compromise with Lin Biao and the fast-rising leftists. This meant aligning himself with Mao and Lin in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution so as to buy time. With Luo Ruiqing out of the way, Nie Rongzhen once again dominated the strategic weapons programs. The purge of Luo Ruiqing and the restoration of Nie's authority in the programs directly affected Project 09, which had been restarted by the end of 196 5. The following May, the Party committee of the navy held a meeting to denounce "bourgeois representative figures." After a sharp conflict between two groups of senior naval officers, the radical group-led by Li Zuopeng, Wang Hongkun, and Zhang Xiuchuan-gained control of the service and branded Xiao Jinguang and Su Zhenhua, the commander and political commissar of the navy, respectively, and others "Luo Ruiqing's followers." 81 Among the more than 3,8oo naval officers who fell victim to the subsequent investigation and purge, many had worked in the naval weapons development programs. For a time, Project 09, so recently restarted, was once again nearly paralyzed. The Power Plant Program in the Cultural Revolution

Thanks to the disruptions of the Cultural Revolution, work at the Jiajiang facility slowed to a snail's pace. In 1967, a full two years after the groundbreaking, only the earthwork for the main workshop of the prototype power plant on land was completed. None of the 14 principal laboratories of the associated research base had yet been built.82 Other parts of the program made some headway, but in the main the gains were fragmentary and minimal. For example, in early 1966, Plant 202 at Baotou managed to produce the first batch of experimental fuel rods that met the required technical standards, and in May, those rods were inserted in a research reactor for tests. These achievements in turn enabled 202's experts to deal with other technical details and control limits and thus helped solve some of the problems in the making of the rods. However, the intermittent production of experimental fuel components in laboratories was still a far cry from their full-scale manufacture.83 From late 1966

The Submarine through 1967, "political turmoil across the nation in the form of seizing power, violent clashes, and suspension of production spread to the nuclear industrial community." 84 Under the circumstances, routine and regular output of the rods was out of the question. We have noted in our history of the nuclear weapons program how the Second Ministry's rigid discipline collapsed in January 1967. Three rival factions organized against each other, called denunciation rallies, and vilified hated opponents. Verbal hyperbole and lurid propaganda soon gave way to fists and clubs, and by the time one of the factions had won, the struggle had spread throughout the nuclear industry.85 According to one official history, though research in the nuclear weapons programs "continued without letup," the quality of that research "was impaired because the initiative of many scientists and technicians was gravely constrained by repeated [political] examinations as well as criticism and denunciations." 86 Some attempts were made to reimpose discipline within the highest priority defense programs, but these met with only marginal success. As a result, on March II, 1967, Nie Rongzhen submitted a report to Mao recommending that the military take over all defense-related research facilities. Mao agreed, and in April Nie's commission wrested direct control of these facilities from the faction-ridden defense industrial ministries." 7 On May r 5, the Central Military Commission ordered military units to occupy the Second Ministry, and there they remained until July 1973.88 In order to accelerate the manufacture of the submarine reactor equipment, Nie's commission encouraged greater communication among specialists in different industrial, military, and academic systems. He approved the holding of a national professional conference to solve the most pressing technical problems related to manufacturing the reactor's equipment and instruments. Over 300 people from 70 factories, academies, and research institutes attended.89 Following up, the commission helped organize several professional meetings, including one in Heilongjiang Province (where the main reactor parts were being built) and another in Wuhan City, Hubei Province (where the pressure vessel was being built).90 Not content with these steps, on August 30, 1967, Nie signed a special official letter. The first of its kind ever issued by the Central Military Commission, the letter exhorted participants in the nuclear-powered submarine project to carry out vigorous cooperation and coordination so as to accelerate the tempo of the project and successfully complete the mission entrusted to them by the state.91 At one critical juncture, the central leaders themselves went to some lengths to protect the nuclear industry. In the months between March and November 1967, for example, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, and

Nuclear Propulsion Nie Rongzhen signed and sent 22 telegrams to key plants, research institutes, and construction sites. Zhou personally signed half of them. All emphatically stated: "No seizure of power," "No suspension of production," "No traveling from place to place to exchange experiences," "No violent clashes," and "Guarantee the absolute safety of plants and stable production in plants." Additionally, between late June and mid-August of that year, the central leadership sent three fact-finding missions to the Jiuquan Atomic Energy Complex (Plant 404, which was engaged in nuclear weapons manufacture) and the Ninth Academy in Qinghai (nuclear weapons design) to assess the damage and restore order.92 In the end, none of these stabilization measures made much difference, and some backfired. In many cases, the military control committees joined the radicals, the coordinating meetings were transformed into accusation sessions, and the discontented mainly listened to the other messages of Mao and Lin urging the rebels on. During 1967 and 1968, to cite just one example, violent clashes among opposing factions erupted several times in the Baotou Nuclear Fuel Component Plant (Plant 202), bringing production to a halt and interrupting research on the submarine reactor fuel rods.93 Nie was fighting a losing battle. Behind the drama of factional warfare, moreover, a systematic destruction of the knowledge base was occurring. By 1969 a number of schools under the Second Ministry had been either disbanded or transferred to the administration of local governments. School buildings were occupied by youthful zealots and ransacked. Large quantities of instruments, equipment, and books and data were destroyed. Over 2,ooo teachers were forced to leave for manual jobs in the countryside, and most universities had to abandon the kinds of courses that were relevant to the study of atomic energy. The staff and workers of every major facility connected to the nuclear submarine project were caught up in the melee. Hardest hit were the Ninth Academy, the Lanzhou Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Plant 504), and Baotou's Plant 202, and the most savage persecution began in November 1969. Over the next two years, So percent of the cadres at and above section (ke) and workshop (chejian) levels, and 90 percent of the senior and middlelevel scientific and technical personnel of the Ninth Academy, for example, were victimized in one way or another; the more unfortunate were subjected to physical abuse. During the same period, 6o percent of the staff and workers of the Lanzhou plant were criticized, denounced, and forced to confess their "crimes." As bad as the first years of the Cultural Revolution had been, things got worse in Lin Bao's heyday. From November 1969 until the winter of 1971,

The Submarine

the minister of defense turned on defense officials and specialists with a vengeance in a ruthless campaign to "purify the class ranks." The Red terror made a shambles of the nuclear industry, though some of the stabilization measures and individual heroics permitted isolated pockets to continue operating.94 Another source of disruption for all strategic weapons programs resulted from the massive shift of national investment and construction to China's mountainous and less vulnerable interior Third-Line, or sanxian, region. We shall discuss the development of this region in detail in Chapter 4· Suffice it to say here that when Mao ordered the shift of strategic facilities to the Third Line, the nuclear ministry's bureaus mobilized their forces for a major building program in these provinces. Yet many must have known that the program initiated by the Central Military Commission in 1964 to build duplicate plutonium, reactor fuel rod, and gaseous diffusion plants and nuclear weapon research facilities in Sichuan Province was already in deep trouble. The plans called for many of the plants to be constructed in caves or underground, but in not a few places, this expensive, ill-planned, and wasteful building effort had come to a halt for lack of tunnel-digging equipment.95 Nevertheless, Mao and his chosen heir, Lin Biao, relentlessly insisted that the effort continue. The nuclear industry got its marching orders on July 2, 1969. At the sanbei conference (that is, the North China, Northeast China, and Northwest China conference) then in progress, Lin Biao directed the Second Ministry to move Plants 202, 404, and 504 to the Southwest.96 What is more, this was to be a crash program: the ministry was to see that "all the atomic energy plants [were fully removed] from Jiuquan and Baotou" to places deep inside China by 1970.97 On July 28, the Second Ministry called an emergency meeting in Beijing to discuss Lin's order.98 Some of Lin Biao's allies presided over the meeting at the Beijing Hotel. The nuclear specialists from the northern provinces, such as Jiang Shengjie from Plant 404, made the case against the move to the Third Line. They held that the nuclear fuel plants, especially the plutonium-production reactor, could not be transported without destroying them. The production of nuclear fuels would end, they asserted, if the old nuclear facilities were moved before the construction of new nuclear plants in the Third Line was completed. Under such conditions, the country's nuclear industry would suffer heavy losses. But members of the military were resolutely on Lin's side. As the commander of the air force, Wu Faxian, put it: "You have to move [the plants] even it is necessary to blow them up with dynamite!" Only later were the leaders of the nuclear weapons program able to induce Premier Zhou Enlai to intervene and nullify Lin's order.

Nuclear Propulsion

43

In August 1970, Lin created further problems for the program. In a meeting to discuss the formulation of the next five-year plan for defense industrial development (1971-75), Lin called for "ferreting out capitalistroaders who had escaped unpunished" and for "catching up with advanced world levels in the first three years and then surpassing them in the next two years." He reaffirmed the importance of shifting large-scale capital construction to the Third Line, and as a consequence, the cost of this construction skyrocketed in the ensuing years. With most of the funding going to buildings in remote provinces, little money was available for direct use on weapons research and development.•• Completion of the Power Plant

Fortunately for the officials dedicated to the submarine project, Lin's heavy-handed intervention came late in the game. The tentative design plan for the prototype power plant was completed by late 1967, and two years later the entire working drawings for the plant were done. 100 During this period, Peng Shilu, a favorite of Mao's as we have seen, and Zhao Renkai headed the Beijing-based group from Institutes 715 and 194. The group oversaw the power plant design and had the final say on all technical questions and their resolution.101 Having decided on the Lenin-type loop system, for example, Peng had to determine the maximum pressure for the reactor's primary loop.102 Foreign sources had reported that pressure to be 200 atmospheres, but Peng thought the number too high. He calculated that 200 atmospheres could damage the fuel components and result in serious accidents. His final judgment was that the primary loop should be designed for a peak pressure of 140 to 150 atmospheres. The manufacture of the primary-loop main pump also posed challenges for Peng's group because of the reactor's high pressures and temperatures. The engineers encountered particular difficulties in fabricating the reactor's low-noise, hermetically sealed pump and in meeting the safety standards for its automatic controls. While Peng's group was designing the power plant, experts on uranium metallurgy labored on the reactor fuel rods.103 Soon after the August 1967 decision to accelerate Project 09, the Second Ministry instructed Plant 202 to set up a workshop for manufacturing the rods and assigned Zhang Peilin, a metallurgist and chief engineer in the ministry's Fuels Production Bureau, to create a rod design team composed of chemists, metallurgists, and other engineers.104 The organization of the system for running the power plant development is set forth in Figure 2. The Second Ministry initially assigned a plant in Baoji, Shaanxi Province, to fabricate the cladding material for the rods. The plant created

Politburo

I

L Central Special Commission

State Council

Central 1 Military Commission

1

------------------------ ------------· :

I

Project 09 ~ Leading Group

Chinese Academy of Sciences

First Ministry of Machine Building

Second Ministry of Machine Building

I ~------~----

Institute of Atomic Energy

Institute of Chemistry

I

:

Defense Science & Technology Commission

I

-~

Navy

---------------------

' '

Project 09 Office

----------:---r-----------------. '

'

First Academy

Reactor Engineering Technology Institute

I Academy Seventh

Fuels Production Bureau

J

L Shenyang Metals Research Institute

' ' ' '

Plant 202

Institute 715

Fig. 2. Organization of the submarine power plant program, 1970

I Institute 719

Nuclear Propulsion

45

workshops to separate zirconium from hafnium, refine the zirconium alloy, and manufacture the cladding tubes. But when the Baoji plant ran into difficulties in the final stage, the Fuels Production Bureau sent Chief Engineer Chen Guozhen to a plant in Chongqing and put him in charge of the processing task. There he met a new problem: the leftists then running the Chongqing plant had no interest in his mission until he showed them Nie Rongzhen's special official letter on the letterhead of the Central Military Commission. Six months later, the tubes were done.105 With the cladding ready, the Second Ministry dispatched Zhang Peilin to Plant 202 to begin production on the complete fuel rods. (He immediately created a minor tempest when he moved into a small room in one of the dormitories. Two staff members living next door promptly moved out because they feared possible exposure to radioactivity and only returned after Zhang explained the physics of radiation.) Under Zhang's leadership, nuclear chemists and physicists stepped up preparations for the trial production of the rods. Some minor problems plagued the effort, but step by step the work proceeded. 106 The plant began manufacturing the fuel components for the prototype reactor by the summer of 1970 and for the submarine reactor by the end of the year. 107 Meanwhile, in Sichuan, work continued on the land-based prototype nuclear power plant. In March 1968, the Second Ministry and the Seventh Academy created a Construction Site Headquarters atJiajiang to supervise the erection of the plant and formed the Southwest Reactor Engineering Research and Design Academy (First Academy). The ministry appointed He Qian as headquarters' director to provide unified leadership over the construction of the base. Peng Shilu, now Institute r 5's acting director, was in charge of the technical wing.108 On July r8, 1968, Mao Zedong ordered PLA troops sent to Jiajiang to join the construction effort, and with this added help, the tempo of the work accelerated. 109 By the end of 1969, the main workshop and most of the 14 labs affiliated with the First Academy had been built.110 On April r8, 1970, engineers finished assembling the land-based power plant, and on May r, it began test operation."' In early July, the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Project Leading Group held a meeting to check the preparations for increasing the reactor's power, and on the r 5th, the Central Special Commission met to assess the group's report.112 There Peng Shilu, on hand as the chief designer, asked Zhou Enlai for permission to raise the power on July r8 in commemoration of Mao Zedong's directive two years earlier sending troops to Jiajiang. When a commission member suggested that the equipment be inspected one more time, Peng replied, "We have already carried out an inspection. It is un-

The Submarine necessary to do it once again." Zhou Enlai reproved him, "You should listen to the opinion of others." The additional inspection was ordered. The commission underscored its continuing concern when it met the following day and decided to send a team of experts to help the plant's regular test unit solve any problems that might arise. 113 These precautions taken, Zhou then consented to the proposal for increasing the reactor power on July I8, though he warned: "You said that you had undertaken four tests on the design, installation, adjustment, and [test] operation [of the reactor]. You still should pay close attention [to raising the power]. Don't he indifferent [to accidents]. You must under no circumstances take this lightly. Accidents might arise at any time from your negligence!" Peng's popularity with Mao did not exempt him from Zhou Enlai's insistence on strict discipline. Right after this meeting, the coterie of experts and officials left for Jiajiang on Zhou's private airplane. 114 At 2:ooA.M., July I], the engineers began increasing the water temperature and steam pressure and, at 6:oo P.M. on the r8th, they started raising the power level. 115 All went well until the 19th, when the engineers discovered problems in the testing and measuring instruments and shut down the reactor for emergency repairs. They found leaks in the pulse tubes and defective valves in the secondary-loop system.116 Zhou Enlai's concerns proved to be well founded. Later experiments revealed other flaws. The engineers had designed the plant to shut down under nine types of abnormal conditions. But the cutoffs proved to be too sensitive, and the test operations were frequently suspended for no apparent reason.117 Zhou learned of these difficulties and phoned the test unit several times with words of encouragement but with orders to cease plant operations until all the problems were resolved.118 Several days later, on July 23, the plant recommenced the test run, and by the end of August, it reached its full-rated power of 48 megawatts (thermal).119 Peng Shilu reportedly hoped that, when installed, the submarine reactor would be as close to this output as possible, thus giving the power supply unit a shaft power of 12,ooo hp (6,ooo per propeller) for its designed efficiency of about I 8 percent. Peng's hope, however, was somebody else's headache. The prototype plant was up and operating.

I. Chines.e delegation headed by Peng Dehuai (third from right) visiting a Soviet destroyer stationed at Liishun, Feb. 19 55

2. Nikita Khrushchev in Beijing, accompanied by (from left to right) Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, and Mao Zedong reviewing a guard of honor, Sept. 30, 19 59

3· Khrushchev and Mao at state banquet in Beijing, Sept. 30, 1959, celebrating PRC's National Day

4· Marshal He Long (right), former director of the National Defense Industrial Commission, with Premier Zhou Enlai in the late 1950s

5. The Golf-class submarine China bought from the Soviet Union

6. A 39-class submarine carrying anti-ship missiles

7· General Liu Huaqing, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, former deputy director of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission, and former commander of the PLA Navy

8. From right to left: Huang Xuhua, chief designer of the 09 nuclear submarine; Huang Weilu, chief designer of the JL-I missile; and nuclear power plant chief designers Peng Shilu and Zhao Renkai

9· Ship Science Research Center (Institute Tai, Wuxi, Jiangsu Province

10.

Wave-making water tank at Institute

702),

7 02

located on the shore of Lake

11.

Land-based nuclear power plant in Jiajiang, Sichuan Province

12.

The 09-1 nuclear attack submarine, No.

402

13. An 09-1 nuclear attack submarine

14. The 09-2 nuclear missile submarine, No. 406

I

5. The nuclear missile submarine under way

THREE

Designing

Between I 94 5 and I 9 5o, the Communist revolutionaries had struggled to gain control of the Chinese mainland mostly from bases in the interior. In time, however, they reached the sea where they faced an unfamiliar threat. Most of Mao Zedong's men and women had never seen the ocean before and had no naval capability to block his enemy's flight by ship to the south and eventually to the island of Taiwan. Herein lay the origins of Mao's dream that China could one day become a major seapower. A high priority in his plans was to train naval personnel as the cadre for manning the ships of the future. 1 In April I95I, when success on the battlefield in Korea still seemed possible, the PRC began to lay the foundation for an expanded and more modern naval service, assigning 2 7 5 officers and sailors to train in the Soviet submarine flotilla at the Liishun Naval Base and arranging for the training of others in the Soviet Union; over the next two years I66 officers were sent to study at Soviet military academies? The aged Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai turned to the task of making small gunboats, and plans went forward for new facilities. 3 In May I952, China began constructing its first submarine base at Qingdao, Shandong Province.• Despite some incipient efforts to build a submarine fleet in the years after the Revolution, the demands of the Korean War in time put a temporary halt to most naval construction projects. Thus, it was not until I953 that the Central Military Commission once again felt ready to accelerate the development of the navy.5 This judgment was based in part on a prior decision to end the war in Korea and in part on the successful conclusion of negotiations with Moscow for substantial naval assistance. The agreement with Moscow, reached on June 4, 1953, would provide 32 warships and complete sets of technical data, parts, and equipment for assembling 49 others in China's shipyards. The Soviet Union also agreed to sell China the

The Submarine licenses to build five types of warships, including an 03-class submarine (designated Whiskey in the West).6 Based on this accord, China produced 21 submarines of Soviet design in the next decade? Though only a small component of the total shipbuilding effort in this period ( rr6 vessels were produced under these Soviet licenses, including 4 frigates, 63 torpedo boats, 14 submarine chasers, and 14 minesweepers; 170 in all were turned out by Chinese shipyards), the submarine was restored to its high place on the military priority list almost immediately after the cease-fire in July 19 53.8 (Indeed, in some sense, it had retained its priority, as evidenced by the fact that more than a year earlier, well after the Chinese People's Volunteers began to suffer huge losses, China began constructing the submarine base at Qingdao.) In August, the Submarine School was formally started in Qingdao, under the leadership of Fu Jize, head of the Liishun Submarine Study Team.9 The following year, China received its first operational submarines from the Soviet Union, two S-class boats in June and two M-rs-class boats in July.10 At the end of November 1954, the two S-hoats participated in various tactical exercises as part of their initial shakedown cruises and then began regular patrols along the East China coast.11 Satisfied with these start-up programs, Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai endorsed a proposal to select more than roo military men who had graduated from colleges or high schools to organize China's first independent submarine group.12 (In 19 51, Zhou had become director of a new Central Ordnance Commission, whose task was to manage the importing of this defense equipment and to create a broad national network of plants and other facilities for China's own military industry. 13 ) In the years following the Korean War, Soviet shipbuilding experts helped upgrade the facilities at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, where, beginning in the winter of I 9 5 s-s 6, the first Soviet-designed submarines were built. On January ro, 19 56, Mao Zedong visited the yard to inspect the inaugural 03-class boat under construction. After examining the yard's equipment and learning that it was made in China, the Chinese leader murmured "Good! Good!" and nodded with approvaJ.1 4 Despite Mao's delight at seeing the Chinese equipment at the Jiangnan Shipyard, it was clear that the navy could not fulfill the five-year plan it had adopted in October 19 53 without heavy dollops of Soviet aid.15 Furthermore, Mao must have known that the Soviet-designed 03-class submarine was being assembled in the main from parts shipped from the Soviet Union and that the navy had yet to sign off on plans for its own Institute of Shipbuilding in Shanghai. The first Chinese-built 03 was not commissioned until June 27, 1957.16 Whatever Mao's worries about China's dependence on the Soviet Union,

Designing

49

he continued to look to it for assistance. In February r 9 59, on the basis of an agreement reached the previous October, China placed orders for Soviet design plans, technical data, and relevant equipment for five more advanced types of warships and two types of naval missiles, among them a Romeo-class attack submarine (33-class), a Golf-class ballistic-missile submarine (31-class), and an R-nFM submarine-launched ballistic missile (ro6o type, without its nuclear warhead).17 The Soviets agreed to provide special assistance on the Golf and Romeo submarines, and this help was critical in laying the groundwork for the present-day submarine force, including the strategic submarines.'~ New Soviet naval doctrine emphasized the strategic underwater navy, and the Chinese incorporated this emphasis into their own military thinking.19 · The Learning Curve When, in August 19 58, the Party Central Committee authorized the commencement of the nuclear submarine project, Project 09, it did so in a document entitled "On the Development of New Naval Submarine Technologies."20 Neither this nor any other contemporary document set forth the precise missions of the submarine, what its costs should be, or what operational or tactical requirements would have to be met. No revised naval doctrine justified the effort. All these matters would have to be postulated or guessed at by the sub's architects. Instead the thrust was principally on general technological requirements. The chief designer of Project 09, Huang Xuhua, has recalled that at this time the nation's shipbuilders were ordered to conduct a prestudy on alternative designs for the nuclear submarine?' Almost immediately, Huang's engineers concluded that it would be necessary to undertake research and development on the submarine's nuclear power plant before making any serious effort to design the submarine itsel£.2 2In October, prospective specialists were chosen and assigned to begin the exploratory research on the plant.23 Despite the precedence given to the power plant, some preliminary thought was devoted to the overall design of the nuclear attack submarine itself. But with very spotty information then available on the submarine programs of other nations, the early designers were left pretty much to come up with schemes of their own.24 One idea (which had also been considered by the Canadians) was to cut a conventional-powered submarine in half, install the nuclear power plant in a new compartment between the two halves, and weld the three sections together.25 Only later did the Chinese decide that their nuclear-powered submarine must be an entirely different craft from a conventional-powered one. Some of the learning un-

50

The Submarine

derlying this decision came from pictures and published academic papers, but others, it seems, came from less weighty sources. For example, Huang Xuhua's design group by chance located a toy model of an American Polaris submarine. The excited designers repeatedly assembled and disassembled the small, coffee-colored scale model and took copious notes on it.26 The model, it might be noted, was not a good replica or even based on good guesswork; much better data had already been published. This curious episode simply illustrates the somewhat unreal world in which the pioneer Chinese designers operated. Although the situation of inadequate sources was to change quickly in the early r96os, few useful published sources on the American and Soviet nuclear-powered submarines reached China during the late 19 sos, and the Chinese by this time had become more skeptical about the data they were acquiring. Since they had difficulty interpreting much of the information collected by their intelligence agents-such as a research paper on the requirements for assuring the submarine's stability-they concluded, probably incorrectly, that most of the published foreign data was deliberately leaked misinformation to fool the defense scientists in other countries.27 The designers with experience working on the Soviet-designed conventional attack submarines were especially sensitive to some of the complex problems that had to be solved. When the reality of having to design a nuclear boat on their own began to sink in, they compiled lists of unknowns and put up wall charts detailing the main hurdles that lay before them. These charts enumerated the hundreds of items to be accomplished under several general headings: Optimal displacement Dimensions and general configuration Designs for the propeller, hydroplane, fin, and pressure and outer hulls (including the calculation of hull strength and failure points, and hull oscillation and fatigue strength) Requirements for the nuclear power plant, electronic equipment, communications and navigation, and control systems Concealment measures needed to reduce the boat's noise and other telltale emissions 28

Decisions on each of these items, they recognized, were interrelated and interactive. The optimal design for the submarine would have to provide for a comprehensive and functional equilibrium of all the principal systems for propulsion, control, concealment and detection, and weapons? 9 The design would have to optimize the balance between the weight and volume displaced by the pressure hull and other impenetrable parts of the boat under various conditions. Weight displacement and constant buoyant

Designing

51

volume are tightly coupled and directly affect the submarine's list and trim. The sub's center of gravity, which the Chinese engineers well understood in theory but found troublesome to calculate, is a significant determinant of underwater stability.30 The Chinese, by studying the standard texts on submarine design and through experimentation, adopted a method for placing the center of gravity well below the center of buoyancy; that is, putting ballast as near the sub's datum line as possible and laying the ballast keel near that line.31 The designers also conducted experiments to measure the trade-offs be~ tween maneuverability and stability. All seacraft gain both maneuverability and stability as they increase speed up to a certain point, though at different rates. The Chinese by pencil and paper computations estimated as best they could the minimal requirements for stability and maximum maneuverability.32 They also stressed the speed of the attack submarine. Speed would be particularly important for an attack submarine but much less so for the missile sub. Nevertheless, the designers became preoccupied with speed for all future nuclear boats, and thereby insinuated the bias of one project into the design specifications for the next. The engineers later had to design that bias out of the missile submarine. The designers also recognized that the boat's underwater performance-maneuverability and speed-would be affected to an important degree by the ratio between its length and beam diameter (LID). When LID falls below r6, the total underwater resistance decreases progressively until the number falls to six; at figures lower than that resistance increases. Submarines with long and thin shapes have greater stability but less maneuverability than boats with short, thick shapes in either their horizontal or their vertical planes.33 A significant effect on the stability, particularly during rapid turns, is the size and placement of the conning tower (or the sail, as it is now usually called). The sail can cause a "snap-roll" effect that can be quite dramatic. By studying pictures of American and Soviet nuclear subs, the Chinese deduced that a range of from seven to twelve probably constituted the best LID for their proposed submarines.34 They eventually settled on an optimal LID of S.s-ro.s for nuclear attack submarines, I I. 5- I 3 for nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines, and 7. 5-9.5 for conventional submarines.35 The sub's planners realized from the very beginning that the missilebearing craft, the second-generation nuclear submarine that would be based on the attack submarine, would be a prime target in time of war, and they found themselves worrying about incorporating features needed for the missile boat into the prototype attack submarine. For example, the naval architects from the start assumed that a double-hull boat had greater

The Submarine combat survivability than a single-hull one. The real challenge, then, would be the inner hull, for the outer, or false one in fact, would be comparatively thin, and so easier to weld, fit out, and smooth.36 The Soviet Union's conventional 33-class (Romeo) and 3r-class (Golf) submarines had double-hull construction, and the designers almost without debate adopted the same construction for their nuclear-powered boats.37 During the earliest stages of their work, they spent weeks debating the various requirements for the sub's survivability before settling on "the ability to maintain combat capacity and cruising performance during normal navigation and in the course of combat," and "to carry out normal operations under unfavorable natural conditions, such as sway caused by wind and waves, vibration, corrosion, and operational wear on mechanical parts." Combat survivability obviously would be determined by "the submarine's ability to protect itself from serious damage in performing combat duties." 38 The designers decided to define both a radius of safety and a radius of danger. The radius of safety was "the shortest distance from the center of an explosion of an antisubmarine weapon to the submarine's body and its mechanical equipment so that the effects of the explosion will not harm the main combat capacities defined by tactical technical data." The danger, or critical, radius was "the shortest distance from the center of the explosion of an antisubmarine weapon to the point at which the damage inflicted upon the submarine's body, machinery, and crew causes the submarine to lose its combat capacity, but the submarine can still float on the surface." For the Chinese, then and now, the safety radius and danger radius are the major specifications for ensuring the survivability of a submarine under attack. These specifications imply rigid requirements for increasing hull strength, hardening equipment against shock, and improving the damage control systems.39 The Chinese designed their boat's pressure hull to withstand large hydrostatic pressures and wanted to deal with the dynamic pressures caused by underwater explosions.40 However, like other submarine designers the world over, they found the latter requirement impossible to meet. Despite all their creative calculations and inventive answers, at best they could only marginally improve the chances for surviving an explosion at fixed depths. Concentrating on other measures to make the sub combat-safe, the engineers looked for ways to lower the level of radiated noise. Their battery of experiments showed that, under some conditions, cutting the level of radiated noise by ten decibels can reduce the effective operational distance of enemy sonar by at least 50 percent.41 But approaching this and similar obstacles to survivability, they often discovered additional requirements

Designing

53

while grappling with the problems at hand. They learned almost by accident, for example, to attach special importance to the noise caused by their own sonar equipment.42 The rate at which the propellers produce air bubbles relates directly to radiated noise, and this too they found out the hard way. Air bubbles not only reduce both survivability and operiuional performance but also induce corrosion. Engineers from Institutes 702 and 72 5 adopted what they believed were the standard measures to lower the bubble rate: decreasing the angular velocity of the propellers (to 125-200 revolutions per minute), increasing the number of propeller blades from three to five or seven (an odd number to eliminate the thumping of a propeller having an even number of blades), enlarging the diameter of the propeller, improving the machining on the propeller blades, and applying sound-absorbing materials.43 They also manufactured noise-reducing materials for the blades.44 Submarines have two other well-known sources of serious underwater noise: the vibration of machinery, and the rush of water over the skin coating of the hull. Both sounds intensify in proportion to speed, but the deeper a submarine dives, the less the noise emitted by its propellers and the greater the operating range of its sonar. From experiments, the Chinese experts discovered that they could reduce vibration and radiated noise by placing the machinery and piping on specially designed pedestals and cladding them in soundproof materials. And so the list of requirements grew: reducing noise levels of fluids flowing through hydraulic pressure systems and reactor pumps, increasing the efficiency of the reduction gearboxes and various pumps or even replacing the gearboxes with more advanced systems, and limiting the number of openings in the outer hull. As we shall see, the Chinese understood that the submarine's configuration also affected noise, but it took them years to settle on a water-drop hull shape (shuidi xianxing). During the 196os, Chinese intelligence uncovered clues to an infrared detection device that could detect heat radiation from the diesel exhaust, yet another source of vulnerability. These clues suggested optimal depths for snorkeling under diesel power and ideas for putting anti-radar coating on the submarine's snorkel and periscope to limit detectability.45 They added demagnetization to their list when they grasped the perils of airborne magnetic detectors and magnetic mines.46 From their close reading of the increasing number of publications on the American Polaris program, the Chinese also decided to pay added attention to the on-board oxygen and radiation protection systems and the living and working environments so as to maintain the crew's effectiveness over extended periods at sea.47 Finally, they had to allow for the unknown

54

The Submarine

extras by estimating and setting aside weight for them (which could be compensated by adding lead if the actual additions proved too light) and to specify and fabricate hundreds of high-strength, weldable steel alloys for each major component of the pressure hull, with the weakest component capable of withstanding hydrostatic pressures at depths up to 300 meters.48 Digging into Western and Soviet sources and their own engineering texts, the Chinese unearthed an endless menu of commonsense approaches to the internal configuring of the submarine: the underwater acoustic detectors should be put in the bow; the command and control console, electronic equipment, navigational console, living cabins, and storage batteries should be installed in or just forward of the central section. Generally speaking, the reactor of a nuclear-powered attack boat must be placed at or just aft of amidships so as to balance the longitudinal static moment caused by the reactor's massive weight. The designers refused to take any of these placements for granted, and one by one each permutation was tested and retested before approval.49 The list of technical jobs to be accomplished was staggering and seemed to expand geometrically with each passing month, and to accomplish them, some of China's top minds were assigned to Project 09.50 These included physicists and experts in shipbuilding, nuclear reactors, and rocketry; most were to remain anonymous to the very end of their careers.51 When they joined the project in I 9 58, the majority were young enthusiasts; when the first nuclear attack submarine was commissioned in 1974, they were seasoned veterans who had overcome both design and engineering obstacles, as well as political insults and injury, during the Cultural Revolution.52 They now recount the story of a dance held by a group of engineers who joined Project 09 in the early years. One handsome young man stopped dancing suddenly and with high emotion announced to his comrades: "I won't get married until the nuclear-powered submarine is launched." He kept his word and was wed only after the first attack submarine (09- I) was commissioned-16 years later. When he took off his hat and nodded a greeting to the guests at the wedding ceremony, all reportedly felt sad for their colleague. He looked old and was completely bald. The same kind of dedication we found in the nuclear weapons program permeated Project 09, especially among those who joined at the beginning. Debates on the Type and Shape of the Nuclear Submarine When Project 09 was cut back in 1961 and then suspended in 1962, most of the engineers were temporarily shifted to other jobs.53 But a core group was retained to work on subsystems that require long research lead times,

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and some of its members continued, on an informal basis, to probe the principal design problems of the nuclear sub. These men, Chief Designer Huang Xuhua and his assistants in the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Overall Design Section of the Seventh Academy/· kept on working on drafting the general plans for what Huang assumed would be the ballistic-missile sub.54 Deciding on an appropriate configuration for the submarine and which type of missile ejection system should be adopted kept Huang and a few of his colleagues busy for most of the next few years." The principal raison d'etre of their activity was to stay ready for the day when the project would be restarted. That day came in August 196 5. But as we have seen, when the Central Special Commission finally did resurrect the project, it also shifted the project's direction, giving clear precedence to the attack submarine. Zhou Enlai declared the project's guiding principle to be liangbu zou (go in two steps) and authorized a timetable that, if met, would see the attack submarine launched by 1972.56 As we have also seen, the formal decision did not end the policy debate, and much time was wasted on other meetings until December 7, 1966, when Nie Rongzhen, who had the final say on the matter, told the participants in yet another meeting: "You [should] just follow the decision approved by the [Central] Special Commission [in August 1965] to develop the nuclear-powered attack submarine first. However, the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building [missile] also should accelerate the research and development on the missile [that can be launched from a submerged submarine]." In China, as elsewhere, consensus-building required both compromise and ambiguity. From the outset, Chief Designer Huang Xuhua had argued for the immediate adoption of the water-drop design then in use in the most advanced of the world's nuclear fleets. 57 Huang and his associates were convinced that the linear shape (xianxing) routinely used for conventional subs would be unsuitable for nuclear-powered boats operating at high speeds and at depths up to 300m. Because each tangent plane of the hull is round in the streamlined water-drop or "whale" shape, they contended, the boat would be subject to minimum friction or drag and have good stability at great depths. Although the water-drop-shaped submarine maneuvered poorly on the surface, it was incomparably better than traditional boats underwater, or so the Chinese concluded. ''The Warship Research and Design Academy (Seventh Academy) was established in June 1961 with the merger of the six research institutes under the Naval Science and Technology Research Department and some research facilities attached to the Third Ministry of Machine Building (conventional weapons).

The Submarine For Huang's antagonists, the question was not really whether but when to adopt the water-drop configuration. What impressed them, and indeed most of the designers, was the American example, whereby program managers had chosen to proceed in three steps, first building a conventional sub with a water-drop shape, then installing nuclear power plants on submarines with a linear shape, and finally applying the water-drop shape to the nuclear-powered submarine. The other leader in the field, the Soviet Union, had pursued an even more circuitous path to this end. Was it possible, the advocates of the staged approach asked, for China, a nation that lacked advanced industrial technologies and sufficient qualified technical personnel, to use this advanced design in its very first nuclear submarine? Huang's answer was an unqualified yes. He later explained his decision this way: "The feasibility of adopting the water-drop shape for configuring nuclear-powered submarines was proved [by foreign countries] before we undertook the project. What was the point for us to follow a three-step course?" Nevertheless, a major dispute erupted on the issue, and Huang's reasoning proved unpersuasive. As he recollects it, heated debates occurred right after his institute began formulating the design plans. The dominant group thought it better to adopt the standard linear shape for the first nuclear submarine and then make the transition to the water-drop model. Some also worried about the factors affecting stability in the water-drop sub. Huang held his ground, but given the charged political climate against "academic authorities" in the early days of the Cultural Revolution, he had to move cautiously. He started by organizing his scientific and technical personnel to make scale-model hydrodynamic experiments. Most of the tests were performed at Institute 702 located on Lake Tai in Jiangsu Province. Created in 19 58, 702 boasted the biggest ship-testing pools in China, including the largest wave tank in its Seaworthiness Laboratory. The tank could simulate any sea state. An experimental minisub was built to test the water-drop shape at low speeds.58 Some experiments on fluid mechanics were also carried out at the hydrodynamic water tanks at several universities and colleges. Of those smaller experimental water tanks, the Hydrodynamic Laboratory at Jiaotong University in Shanghai was the most modern by the late 196os.59 The scale-model experiments repeatedly verified the overall superiority of the more revolutionary water-drop shape, but the tests left unresolved several questions about the maneuverability and stability of a submerged submarine so configured. With such mixed results, Huang conceded the debate to the traditionalists. All the while, the Nuclear Powered Submarine Overall Design Institute (Institute 719) had been busy drawing up a full

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set of plans for the attack submarine (an assignment it had started in June 196 5, even before Project 09 was officially revived), and in November 1966, when it submitted its first draft, the plan called for a conventional linear shape.60 That decision lasted about a month. Here again, Nie stepped in to settle the matter. On taking over Project 09, his commission had quickly become aware of the experts' disagreements over the sub's shape. After due consideration, Nie acted decisively. At the same meeting of December 7 where he decreed that work must proceed first on the attack sub, he rejected the institute's proposal in no uncertain terms: "Don't adopt the linear shape of conventional-powered submarines. You should redesign [the submarine]. Otherwise, it will become nondescript, neither conventional nor nuclear-powered." Quietly the arguments died, and the draft plan was rewritten accordingly.61 Three days later, in the follow-up talks at the Beijing Hotel, Nie ordered senior specialists to inspect the revised design plans one last time before he transmitted them to the central authorities. Wisely not challenging Nie Rongzhen's declarations on the type and shape of the boat, the experts concentrated in a somewhat pro forma way on technical matters related to the new design plans and returned the draft to their boss. Nie then submitted his report to the Central Military Commission and the Central Special Commission. On December 16, the special commission approved both of Nie's decisions and issued this directive: "The Defense Science and Technology Commission and the National Defense Industry Office should help the Sixth and Second Ministries of Machine Building make better arrangements for the solution of problems relevant to coordination and cooperation among various scientific research facilities as well as the manufacture of equipment and so on." Attempted Coordination in the Period of Turmoil No sooner had the type and shape of the nuclear attack submarine been officially approved than the project fell victim to the Cultural Revolution. The nationwide social and political crisis, as we noted in the previous chapter, disrupted all phases of Project 09, which remained somewhat immune to high-level measures adopted to restore order. Yet even in the throes of the national upheaval, most of the survivors tried to complete their tasks and press on with the job. In addition to the chaotic world around them, the professionals now had to find ways to coordinate their activities and weave them into a whole. We turn to this part of their story. Once the Central Special Commission decided to restart Project 09, building the sub was labeled a "key" program. Zhou Enlai went even further, stipulating that supplying the program with all the required "funds,

The Submarine materials, and equipment should claim precedence over all others." 62 To speed things along, the Seventh Academy now sought and got Zhou's permission to recruit more shipbuilding specialists. In addition, at Zhou's direction, the Ministry of Education assigned 1,500 college graduates to the academy over the next three years. All that helped, but there was a more pressing need, for the program had already progressed to the point where the problems to be solved cut across many disciplines, some quite new to the Chinese. Since most of the best specialists in these disciplines worked in institutes scattered across China and in facilities beyond the Sixth Ministry's direct control, the Seventh Academy needed to identify the appropriate personnel and then persuade them to become involved. To this end, the Seventh Academy promoted academic exchanges among various research facilities, and after the opening of the power plant research base in Jiajiang, Sichuan Province, it set out to create a critical mass of specialists there. Following the arrival of more than 200 technicians from the Seventh Academy, the First Academy of the Second Ministry (Southwest Reactor Engineering Research and Design Academy) at Jiajiang directed them to work together in studying the available professional knowledge on submarine nuclear power supply. This interdisciplinary approach had the added payoff, according to Huang Xuhua, of breaking down disciplinary barriers. To him, the new system was "miraculous." 63 At the meeting of December 7, 1966, held to determine the type and shape of the submarine, Nie Rongzhen attempted to limit the geographical and organizational fragmentation within Project 09 and to clarify the simplified division of labor in it. He declared: "The Defense Science and Technology Commission and the National Defense Industry Office should jointly supervise [Project 09]. The Sixth Ministry of Machine Building is in charge of building the submarine. The Second Ministry of Machine Building is responsible for constructing [the submarine] nuclear power plants. The navy should help various industrial ministries and research academies promote the project." 64 On paper, Nie's proposal appeared feasible. But the problems created by the social turmoil of the Cultural Revolution proved far too intractable to be overcome by standard organizational remedies or edicts. In January 1967, officially egged on by Mao Zedong and Lin Biao, radical activists began seizing power from officials at all levels, and by the summer violent clashes spread throughout the nation.65 The organs of the project did not escape. For example, political unrest engulfed Institute 719, which was responsible for administering the nuclear submarine project. One target was Qian Lingbai, who had made the "mistake" of studying in the Soviet Union.66 As a section director at the institute, Qian was busily working on sub-

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marine designs when the Cultural Revolution erupted in his office. Forcing their way in, squads of youthful rebels focused on his Soviet training and expertise, and as part of his punishment for having professional credentials, he was isolated from the project. It was not until his colleagues at the institute were unable to solve a critical formula for calculating the submarine's total weight that Qian was "liberated" and told to bail them out. As of 1990, Qian still worked at Institute 719. Even before Qian came under attack, the chief designer of Project 09 himself, Huang Xuhua, had felt the Red Guards' wrath. In 1966, while he was presiding over a project coordination conference held in Beijing, revolutionary rebels from Institute 719 rushed into the meeting and hauled him back to Huludao. There he was denounced and "sentenced".to raising pigs.67 Over the next months, the rebels tried and retried his case as a public spectacle. In one of these grotesque episodes, the following dialogue occurred between Huang and a member of the military control team that had taken over the institute: 68 Military representative: "You said you weren't an enemy agent assigned to worm your way into the underground Party organization at Jiaotong University [where Huang had studied]. Is this possible? You come from a bourgeois landlord family. How could you have risked joining the underground Party? That would have meant that you had forsaken your class origins. Is it possible for something so unusual as this to have occurred?" Huang Xuhua: "A few leading comrades of the central authorities also come from landlord and capitalist families. Why did they rebel against their own class to carry out revolution?" Military representative: "You dare to compare yourself to the leading comrades in the Center! You are guilty of a crime for which even death cannot atone. To which kind of people do leading comrades in the Center belong? To which kind of people do you belong?" Huang Xuhua: "We are all human beings! We are all Party members!" Military representative: "You said that you were not an enemy agent. Then you should confess who stood at your right side and left side each time you went onto the streets and demonstrated [as a Jiaotong student]?" Huang Xuhua: "Can you yourself remember who stood at your right and left sides when you did physical exercises more than twenty years ago?" Military representative: "You are an agent who only deserves to be given two peanuts [bullets]!"

At about this time, one of Huang Xuhua's supervisors at the institute was driven insane by such threats, but reportedly "Huang was lucky enough not to be given ... 'peanuts' because the nuclear-powered submarine project needed him." At the express order of Zhou Enlai, he had been put under "special protection" and restored to duty, though the radical factions continued to assail him. In the hope of preventing further damage to the project, Nie Rongzhen

6o

The Submarine

decided to hold a conference and invite some central leaders who might rein in the radicals. Further, in the notices he dispatched to the participating units, issued in the name of the Central Military Commission, he stipulated that anyone who received an invitation must be permitted to attend the conference even if he or she was being criticized and denounced at public meetings.69 Hundreds of directors, secretaries of Party committees, and chief engineers/designers in charge of developing the 09-r's subsystems gathered at the Nationalities Hotel in Beijing on June 20, 1967. The conference, which ran over several days, was presided over by Liu Huaqing, deputy director of Nie's commission. Nie himself, trying to stay in the background so as not to lay himself open to attack, merely called for the promotion of the project "as scheduled" in his brief address to his colleagues. But by now no second-echelon official alone could halt the spread of anarchism throughout the project's industrial and scientific network. Thus, about this time, at its eighteenth meeting, the Central Special Commission tried its hand at restoring order and discipline. Under Zhou Enlai's guidance, it decided: "The State Planning Commission, the Ministry of Materials, and other departments concerned are responsible for providing the equipment and materiel most needed by the various departments concerned with promoting research and development on the nuclear-powered submarine. Similar problems that arise hereafter should be resolved in a timely way by the departments concerned [using the same method].mo Following up, on August 30, Liu Huaqing recommended that the Central Military Commission issue an official letter as an emergency measure for promoting Project 09. We briefly mentioned this letter, which was signed by Nie Rongzhen, in the previous chapter. The letter reaffirmed that the nuclear submarine program was crucial to the building of China's national defense and stressed that no interruption of research or production would escape punishment. In response to the letter and Mao's follow-up directives, the PLA ordered its trucks, warships, and aircraft to deliver urgently needed equipment. The industrial ministries sent propaganda teams to hundreds of plants and institutes connected to the project, this time with the restoration of order on their minds. They stressed that their mission had been approved by Mao Zedong himself and was vital to China's security. Labeling disruptions and delays a crime against Mao, the teams threatened harsh reprisals for any further outbursts. Yet even these drastic moves proved only partially successful. The groups working on the prototype power plant in Jiajiang were able to complete their assignments, but those working on the general submarine design

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found their efforts frustrated by the need to have every forward step scrutinized and accepted by warring factions. In desperation, the design team leaders turned for relief to outside specialists uncontaminated by previous clashes. They invited Deng Sanrui to be their chief adviser for the overall design plan, for example, and one of his main tasks was interpersonal mediation, even individual therapy.71 Sometimes it was unclear who was helping whom. The Seventh Academy, for instance, wanted Qian Lingxi, a professor at the Dalian Institute of Technology and an authority on structural mechanics to analyze the submarine's design plans, but Qian at the moment was being criticized and denounced at public meetings as an "academic authority," and the label rendered him untouchable. Powerless to pry Qian loose from the Dalian institute, Chen Youming, then deputy director of the academy, asked Zhou Enlai for approval to have Qian examine the submarine's structural designs and to formulate the standard specifications for those designs. Zhou approved Chen's request, but cautioned him not to transfer the professor formally to Project 09 and to solicit his help only in general terms. 72 From this and numerous other cases, it was becoming painfully clear that a much more authoritative administrative body was needed to oversee the ongoing work of the project. Evolution of the Command Structure Qian's case made clear the urgent need for a new project command center separate from the Defense Science and Technology Commission, the Second Ministry, the Sixth Ministry, and the navy, and directly subordinate to the Central Special Commission. Nie's commission decided that the way to handle this and similar problems was to create an interagency administrative body to handle the project's day-to-day affairs. In February 1968, it set up the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Project Office (He Qianting Gongcheng Bangongshi), with Chen Youming as director. For convenience and secrecy, the office was usually referred to as the 09 Office or Lingjiuban.73 In his early career, Chen had commanded a torpedo boat flotilla operating out of Hainan Island, but after 19 54, he was involved primarily in R&D administration, first as director of the Seventh Academy's Institute 701 (general warship design), and then as the academy's deputy director. 74 Chen's Lingjiuban was put under the administration of the Defense Science and Technology Commission, and was composed of officials from that body, the navy, the NDIO, and the Sixth Ministry. The following year, the commander of the navy, Xiao Jinguang, enters the story of Project 09 for the first time? 5 On October 9, 1969, Xiao pre-

The Submarine sided over a fact-finding conference to audit the progress of the nuclear attack submarine or 09-1 program. Ranking cadres from the State Planning Commission, the NDIO, the Defense Science and Technology Commission, the Second and Sixth ministries, and the First and Seventh academies attended.76 After a recounting of the dreary list of horror stories about factions and failures, the delegates recommended that the State Council and the Central Military Commission establish a new body at a level above the Lingjiuban in order to enforce cooperation among the project's units. Agreeing, the council and the commission jointly appointed the NuclearPowered Submarine Project Leading Group (He Qianting Gongcheng Lingdao Xiaozu) and made the first political commissar of the navy, Li Zuopeng, the group's head. 77 The new organization, usually called simply the Leading Group, reported to both the Central Special Commission and the Central Military Commission.78 With this change, the Lingjiuban came under the Leading Group, only to be moved again to the purview of the navy headquarters in 1970, as o9's main activities shifted from the R&D institutes to the naval shipyards.79 In retrospect, the Lingjiuban probably played a more critical role in Project 09 than the Leading Group, but both were important. The Leading Group exercised substantial power for about a year, but after the decline of its radical boss, Li Zuopeng, in late 1970, it steadily lost influence. The Lingjiuban handled the project's daily affairs, and in so doing, kept closer connections with Zhou's special commission and played a more direct role in managing the project than the Leading Group. The changing power configurations over the years, a snapshot of which is given in Figure 3 for October 1969, reflected the center's continuing quest for organizational solutions in Project 09, as well as in other strategic weapons programs. After the resumption of the project in August 196 5, the Central Military Commission and the Central Special Commission kept adjusting 09's command structure, entrusting leadership first to the NDIO and the Defense Science and Technology Commission jointly, and then successively to the commission alone (1966-69); the Leading Group (1969-70); the navy (1970-78); and the commission again (1978-82). Since 1982, the project leaders have reported to the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND).80 Still, it took more than a change in the command system to produce significant results, even though the project's high political profile technically ensured its access to restricted equipment and materials until the early 1970s. After Chen Youming reported that unyielding obstacles still plagued the project at a meeting of Zhou Enlai's special commission on

Central Special Commission

National Defense Industry Office (NDIO)

Fig. 3· Organization of Project 09, Oct. 1969

Central Military Commission

Science & Technology Commission

The Submarine July 15, 1970, Zhou put his own prestige on the line. When the meeting reconvened the following day, he introduced Chen to officials in a position to ease his way,81 and made it plain he expected their full cooperation, saying: "Yesterday Comrade Chen Youming said that several problems concerning the nuclear-powered submarine project still remain to be solved. Please help him solve these problems. Comrade Chen Youming, hereafter you should negotiate directly with them as soon as you meet problems. Don't ask the special commission for instructions on everything because this will delay [the progress of the whole project]." Zhou's personal clout more than Chen's decreed task made the difference, and from then on the project experienced few serious delays for want of equipment or materials. At a time of great shortages, that clout was essential to carrying out a project of 09's magnitude. From the outset, Mao and Zhou regarded the project as larger in scale and more complex than the ones on nuclear weapons (Project 02) and strategic guided missiles (Project 05).82 For example, almost twice as many plants, research institutes, and colleges and universities were reportedly involved in Project 09 as in Project 02 (2,000 spread out in 27 different localities vs. I ,ooo in 20 ).83 The two leaders thus understood that Project 09 needed the most authoritative attention and demanding systems management, and somehow had to be freed from the constant political interference and bureaucratic red tape. For example, on the night of October ro, 1969, Zhou Enlai summoned Luo Shunchu (deputy director ofNie's commission), the Second Ministry's Vice-Minister Liu Xiyao,84 Chen Youming, and several electronics specialists to his office to discuss the progress on the sub's atomic clock and radio navigation equipment. After hearing their briefing, Zhou Enlai pointed out: "Just as you have told me, [developing these instruments] is very complicated in terms of technology. The nuclear-powered submarine project is very complicated, even more complicated than liangdan [the strategic missile and nuclear warhead projects]. The nuclear-powered submarine itself includes liangdan." So why, Zhou was implying, were his calls for unity and coordination in the project meeting such indifference or resistance?

Completion of the Nuclear Attack Submarine's Design Within the ever-changing command system, the groups under Huang Xuhua doggedly pressed ahead on solving the remaining puzzles in their design work. At this stage in formulating the overall plans for the first submarine, Huang concentrated on the interior atmospheric and environmental systems, inertial navigation, sonar, and long-distance communications

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equipment and insisted on his engineers using the latest methodologies of systems engineering in their design.85 He also exhorted his designers to study other nuclear submarine programs carefully as information on them became public or was obtained through intelligence. Admonishing his specialists "to derive nourishment from others' experiences," he told them, "You can get twice the result with half the effort if you know how to pick others' brains," the more so, since today's "sophisticated [scientific] results are usually made up of conventional [scientific] results. Don't make a mystery of the most advanced branches of science .... Most of the advanced branches of science adopted for the American Polaris and Apollo programs were based on an appropriate synthesis of existing technologies. Synthesis is truly creativity.... What counts is how to synthesize [existing technologies]." 86 Huang's point proved well-taken in every case where the designers faced unexplored technical territory. An example was the high pressure air tanks for ballast control.87 According to foreign sources, modern submarines required compressed air at pressures as great as 4ookg/cm1 (or about 400 atmospheres; that is, many times the pressure at maximum test depth), which far exceeded Chinese capabilities at the time.88 Huang ordered his associates to solve the problem by improving the air tanks then available, not by trying to invent new types. 89 Huang believed in the motto of the times: "When the conditions exist, go ahead; when they don't, create them and go ahead." In each case, evaluating the conditions began with a rigorous mining of all the available foreign literature. Sometimes solving a problem depended more on hands-on management than engineering science. Case in point: correctly calculating the sub's total weight and center of gravity. Both factors are crucial to the vessel's stability; failing to account for thousands of items of equipment in its small hull would plainly mean disaster. The designers first tried to compute the boat's ideal stability but had trouble deciding on the figures for its reserve weight and other specifics.90 They had to calculate and adjust for the weights and location of each item of on~board equipment, a simple problem to solve in theory but baffling to work out in practice. As part of the solution, Huang told every engineer responsible for designing a given piece of equipment to go to the factories where it was manufactured and measure its precise weight and center of gravity? 1 In this way, Huang adopted a method of designing while manufacturing the 09- r boat's subsystems. His decision to do both at once reflected the urgency attached to the project but simultaneously magnified the chances of error. The general design plans could only be finalized at the end of the

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equipment manufacturing process, and when the moment of truth arrived, the gross weight far exceeded the engineers' initial estimates.92 Furthermore, the method introduced errors in both the design and testmanufacturing stages. For a time the process of trial and error favored error. As the engineers were completing the overall design plans, they discovered to their dismay that increasing the total weight of the submarine had caused a shift in the balance of the various on-board subsystems. None of the manuals told them how to restore the balance, so Huang Xuhua after some hasty meetings made his best educated guess and settled on the final interior arrangements by fiat. 93 In an attempt to forestall even greater inaccuracies, a careful record was kept of the weight of each item before it was installed on the full-scale wood-and-steel model of the 09- r Huang had his workers build at the shipyard. Once an item was installed, the weight of any leftover bits and pieces, as well as superfluous pipeline and electrical cable, was deducted from its original weight on coming aboard.94 Based on these sums and using trial and error throughout the building phase, the designers were able to assemble accurate data for measuring the submarine's weight and center of gravity, and then proceed on to calculate the boat's ideal operating stability.95 In November 1968, engineers and workers started building the submarine's double hulls at the Bohai Shipyard (Plant 431), even though the interior design had not yet been finalized.96 The problem was that the design depended on the manufacture of the interior equipment, and the manufacturing process, caught up in the Cultural Revolution, was proceeding badly. None of the internal systems referred to at the beginning of this section was ready. Without them, as one Chinese writer has noted, the 09-r would be a "bastard" submarine with a "sophisticated" father (nuclear power) and a "backward" mother (outdated weapons and systems).97 The torpedo ejection system was ready and waiting, but the torpedo design was causing enormous headaches, and, indeed, the Chinese continued to wrestle with the problems long after the first 09 sub was launched. Once the designers settled on a ring-shaped layout for the placement of the torpedo tubes, the Seventh Academy, in 196 5, without demur assigned Institute 705 to design the ejection system, and four years later, the Wuhan Auxiliary Engine Plant (Plant 46r) built the system for the 09-r.98 There was no such consensus on the torpedo itself. The engineers had set their sights on developing a revolutionary deep-water homing torpedo,99 but they had a long way to go and few supporters. At the outset, in the early r96os, Liu Huaqing, then dire~tor of the Seventh Academy, pressed Institute 705 to copy a Soviet-model torpedo for missions against surface targets. 100 Although Liu's experts understood that the principal

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prey for the torpedoes of the future would be submarines, not surface ships, they accepted the assignment and made it one of their top priorities.101 In 1966, when the navy began building two torpedo testing ranges in Qinghai and Yunnan provinces/ 02 organs of Liu's academy had already built a gas-powered torpedo, code-named Yu-r. Meanwhile, other research bodies had started working on a copy of a Soviet rocket-assisted aerial torpedo, the Yu-2.103 But all concerned recognized that neither the Yu-r nor the Yu-2 would close the technological gap with the Soviet Union and the United States, and in that year, experts started designing two electric homing torpedoes. Using a Soviet model, they designed acoustic homing devices for the new torpedoes, a passive one for the Yu-4A and an active/passive one for the Yu-4B.104 Neither, however, was suitable for the 09-I. Also in 1966, the Defense Science and Technology Commission finally specified the mission for nuclear attack submarines, and over the next decade Institute 705, now in its new home in Kunming, worked on a torpedo to attack enemy submarines in deep water. 105 As part of the construction in the Third-Line region, many technicians were transferred from other institutes and plants to Kunming to work on acoustic homing torpedoes.106 In 1983, this heterogenous group began the final tests on an electric passive-homing prototype, code-named Yu-3, and readied the first batch for deployment within a year. The noise level of Yu-3 remained high, however, and the effectiveness of its homing systems was still low compared with Western torpedoes. They could not be used on attack submarines operating at great depths.107 Thus, in 198 3 the navy started a six-year effort on an advanced small-sized homing torpedo for attacking submarines at great depth. 108 Technicians at the China Naval Research Center's Torpedo Research Section initiated R&D on improved homing mechanisms. 109 In 1985, the Seventh Academy directed Institute 70 5 and two plants to design an active/passive-homing device and other subsystems for the advanced torpedo; this project alone cost three million yuan over the next three years.110 By 1989, these organs, in cooperation with Plant 5002, had succeeded in producing the more sophisticated Yu-3, now called China Sturgeon No. 2. The designers believed the Sturgeon approached the highest international standard.111 Other key items of the on-board subsystems primarily related to electronics. With the help of the research facilities attached to the Fourth Ministry of Machine Building (electronics), institutes under the Seventh Academy labored on each of these subsystems throughout the years of the Cultural Revolution. Despite the near chaos surrounding them, the workers at

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Institute 707 in Tianjin made progress on the inertial navigation system, and other institutes met similar successes on their assigned items. 112 An entire sector of China's industry focused on the project, and by August 1974, when the 09- r submarine was commissioned, most of the subsystems had been installed. The schedule had been met, but hidden in many of these systems were defects that were to continue to plague the 09 boats into the mid-r98os.113 Completion of the 09-2 Design Well before the 09-1 entered the final stages, work had begun on the nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine, the 09-2,114 and by October 1967, the first draft of the general design plans was completed. Thereupon, Nie Rongzhen's Defense Science and Technology Commission and the navy convened a meeting and officially restarted the missile submarine program under Project 09. 115 The meeting ended in a decision to set 1973 as the target year for launching 09-2. 116 According to Huang Xuhua, the chief designer of the 09-2 as well as the 09-1, the Chinese knew that the French had built a small, low-speed, nuclear missile submarine, and that the low speed reduced its noise emissions and made it less susceptible to detection. Huang and his designers found this trade-off between noise and speed in the French design well worthwhile, since to their minds, the first priority ought to be given to 09-2's concealability. Huang is quoted as arguing that missile submarines "are regarded as having a second-strike capability; that is, having the capability to survive a first nuclear strike .... There is no point in increasing its speed .... For example, a poisonous snake has venom fangs ... and captures its prey more by concealment than by speed. Accordingly, a poisonous snake creeps much slower than a nonpoisonous one." 117 In practice, this would mean undoing the bias toward speed in the 09-1 program. Indeed, many of the technical principles adopted for the 09-2 program at the 1967 meeting reflected the prior development of 09-1. 118 Some parts of the 09-1 design could be transferred, some could not. Both, for example, would use the same kind of pressurized water reactor. Much later, when adapting this reactor to the missile submarine, the designers could tap the plant's additional potential by up to 20 percent. The plant, they decided, would have to be installed aft of the missile tubes.119 Huang put his chief assistant, Xu Junlie, in charge of formulating the missile sub's overall design plans.120 The main difference between the attack and missile submarines, of course, was the addition of the missile launch tubes and missile ejection systems. These additions again involved

Designing

unknowns on which no body of literature was available to the Chinese. Xu and his colleagues had learned a little about how to launch a missile from a submarine when they were assembling the Golf diesel-electric missile submarine (3 r -class) under Soviet license at the Dalian Shipyard. But since that sub launched its missiles from the surface, their experience proved of marginal utility in working out 09-2's underwater-launch system. 121 Chief Designer Huang and his colleagues believed the ejection system posed the main technical problem in the design of 09-2, and as it turned out, all other problems paled by comparison. They learned from Western sources that an underwater-to-surface missile was usually launched from a submarine operating at a muzzle depth of less than 30m. They guessed that the timing of missile ignition in Western SLBMs varied, usually according to a preset distance traveled.122 The missile launch tube involved less guesswork, for in this case the essentials were known from the sources in hand. Each missile rests within the inner of two tubes, and several U-shaped backup rings and airtight seals are installed between the tubes to maintain their concentricity as well as to keep the ejection blast out of the space between them. Automatic air conditioning attached to the launch tubes protects the missile's sensitive electronic equipment by maintaining the temperature at about 20°C and the humidity at about 70 percent. Special adapters (shipei qi) located between the missile and the case of the inner tube form part of the launchassistance system discussed below; they help keep the missile positioned in the tube correctly during the launch by moving with the missile to the top of the tube.123 The hydrostatic pressure at the tube muzzle is about three atmospheres at a muzzle depth of about 30m, and the lid of the outer tube can only be opened with the assistance of a pressure-balance system. Before missile ejection, water is injected into the space between the lid of the outer tube and a watertight film at the mouth of the inner tube; at the same time, the inner tube must be filled with air to balance the exterior and interior pressures. The film resists small pressure differences but not the ejection itself. Step by step, the pressures outside the submarine and inside the tubes are brought into relative balance. Prior to launch, the missile's guidance system, engines, and warhead instrumentation can be monitored electronically from outside the tubes. The cabling for this monitoring detaches automatically just before liftoff.124 To achieve the required high accuracy of the missile, the designers had to ensure that the submarine remained stable at the moment of ejection. A slight change occurs in the boat's center of gravity as the missile clears it,

The Submarine because the water entering the launch tube weighs more than the missile. Missile-weight compensation water tanks must, therefore, be added to blow out the excess and keep the submarine in balance. 115 The 09-2's missile launch system also incorporated a number of safety design features. Special equipment was installed to set off an alarm should water enter the missile tube before launch and to monitor any abnormal changes in pressure, temperature, or humidity. The designers provided for an emergency ejection system to protect the sub from a missile accident and for equipment to pump out seawater and pump in fresh water for cleaning the missile tubes. 126 The job of working out all these features fell to Institute 713, in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. 127 In selecting people for this assignment in mid196 5, Huang had hoped to draw on the experience of the technicians who had helped assemble the Golf-class submarine's missile launch tube and ejection systems, but the transfer of knowledge, as we have remarked, was minimal, and the institute had to start almost from scratch. The 713 technicians converted a rundown greenhouse into their laboratory and built a simple pool by welding several gasoline tanks together. Using a paintspraying compressor as their power source, they started performing 1:2 5 model-scale ejection tests from the pool. Following the incremental trialand-error method as the only one available to them, they completed the preliminary research work on the ejection system design and some key technical items by the end of the year.128 With this done, the next step was to choose an energy source for the system. Huang learned that the Americans had initially used compressed air to eject the missile but had then switched to a chemical propellant (the propellant produces steam when exhausted into a tank of water, and the steam creates the required pressure below the missile).129 Using a propellant made maintenance simpler but produced a column of water that exposed the sub's location.130 The Chinese puzzled over this trade-off and wondered whether they too should follow a staged approach beginning with the compressed air. If not, how would they meet the rigorous and risky requirements for propellant-fueled ejection? In such an ejection system, the propellant would have to produce enough steam to boost the missile to a speed of several meters per second (usually about 45m per second or less in submarines submerged to depths of 3om). At the same time, the engineers had to design a system that would expose the missile to pressures of less than ten atmospheres.131 Huang believed such a design was possible and recommended skipping the compressed-air stage. 132 As we shall see, he commissioned research chemists in two industrial institutes to develop a suitable explosive propellant.

Designing

7I

Having decided in principle on this course, the designers next had to choose between a gas system and a gas-steam system. They chose the latter. The gas-steam ejection system is composed mainly of a gas generator, a gas-cooling apparatus, a gas-steam pipeline, a compression chamber, and airtight seals. Once the propellant in the gas generator is ignited, the gas enters the water-filled gas-cooling apparatus, producing a gas-steam mixture. The mixture moves through the pipeline to the compression chamber in the launch tube and rapidly increases pressure there. The chamber is the space between the bottom of the missile or launch-assistance device (discussed below) and the bottom of the launch tube. Seals, whose location can vary within the launch tube, ensure that the full force of the pressure wave comes at the base of the missile. Another critical decision involved the operating speed of the sub at firing time. In the Soviet system, in which missiles were usually launched from a moving submarine maintaining speeds up to five knots, the motion of the boat helps preserve maneuverability and stability at the critical moment of launch. U.S. subs, by contrast, fire when they are making little or no headway, never faster than 0.5 knot. For a dead-in-the-water boat to maintain its depth during launch, it must have large pumps to move great volumes of ballast water quickly and accurately. A moving submarine, while easier to control, creates a separate set of technical problems. The force created by the water at speeds above o. 5 knot tends to tip the missile away from vertical as it emerges from the launch tube. If this torque cannot be corrected, the missile may scrape the side of the tube and be damaged or become a horizonal torpedo.133 The Chinese came down in favor of a Soviet-type method for launching their missiles from submerged submarines moving at two to four knots.134 They designed a relatively simple launch-assistance system, including the adapters installed in the inner tube, to guide the missile out of the tube during the launch. In this system, the missile basically sits on a launchassistance device (LAD) and is connected to the adapters, which serve as rails within the tubes. As the LAD and missile move up the launch tube, the system counteracts the force of the water and keeps the missile vertical. The device, which takes the brunt of the ejection blast, moves to the top of the launch tube before separating from the underway missile. A thermal shield under the missile forms part of the LAD; it protects the missile from the heat of the blast and bears the impact of the initial thrust. The LAD separates from the missile at the top of the tube and returns to the bottom.135 All this was quite straightforward engineering if the missile was going to be launched from a depth of less than 30m. Otherwise the challenge was

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enormous. The designers took the easy way out and went for a shallow launch. The JL-r missile does not ignite until it reaches a height of about ro-rsm above the surface. 136 In 1966, after the navy approved Huang's recommendations for the ejection system, specialists from the Seventh Academy's Institutes 713 and 719 made preparations for conducting r: 5 scale-model underwater ejection tests. They built a larger test pool, 6.sm deep and 2.5m in diameter, and a landing impact pit. Over the next two years, they conducted dozens of tests on the gas-steam system and listed r8 major technical problems to be solved in perfecting the system. One by one they resolved these problems and confirmed the feasibility of the gas-steam system. These tests verified the necessity of installing special adapters between the missile and the case of the inner launch tube and identified various design mistakes to be rectified.137 Meanwhile, research proceeded slowly on the chemistry of the explosives. As late as 1968, no investigation in China had begun on fast-burning double-base powders, the compounds presumed to be appropriate for the ejection system. Research then under way on fast-burning composite explosives provided some clues for making double-base powders but convinced Huang's group that much more needed to be done.138 DongJinrong, an engineer in the group, heard of a college professor conducting research on such composite powders. 139 But radicals had labeled the professor "a bourgeois reactionary academic authority," and he was being paraded before public denunciation meetings. With the professor in disgrace and beyond reach, the military had assigned a factory in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, to continue working on the professor's special formulas. 140 Learning of this turn of events, Dong set off for Taiyuan, only to discover that an accidental explosion had occurred at the factory shortly before his arrival, and few workers were ready to rush back to the mixing vats. Dong sensed, however, that fear could be transformed into heroics once the workers learned of Mao's high interest in the project, and he used that interest to persuade the factory technicians to return to work. Continuing the professor's line of inquiry, they joined forces with the Lanzhou Institute of Chemistry and Physics and Institute 3 in Xi'an, two institutes that specialized in high explosives. 141 The first full-scale rocket launched from a Golf-class sub in September 1972 was testimony to their ingenuity and perseverance. With the matter of the propellant lagging behind the design of the ejection system, Beijing issued an order in late 1969 to accelerate the research in that domain, and specialists from the Xi'an and Lanzhou institutes spent the next several years producing the first practical fast-burning double-

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base powder. After further testing and redesigning of the ejection system, they used the powder on a land-based model of the gas-steam ejector in 197 5 and for the test of several full-scale model rockets from a submerged Golf sub in 1979.142 Two more questions puzzled the Chinese: what would be the maximum sea state for safely launching a missile from a submerged submarine and what should be the minimum depth for the launch? Sea state indexes the level of potential turbulence that could throw the missile off vertical; sea depth, limiting keel and muzzle depth, affects both the sub and the missile during launch. From experiments, the engineers calculated that the maximum sea state must be less than grade 5 with an underwater current velocity of under two knots, and that the depth of the water at launch command must exceed 8om. 143 All this work culminated in the JL-1's first successful test flight from a Golf sub on October 12, 1982.144 By then, the engineers had also resolved the remaining technical questions about the 09-2 design, none of which approached the ejection system in complexity. The final step in designing a nuclear ballistic missile submarine had been taken.145

FOUR

Military Industry

The story of the building of the nuclear-powered submarine, the subject of the next chapter, must begin with the history of China's military industry. That history will show how a major strategic weapons project not only depended on the formation of a broad industrial base geared to defense production but also spurred and shaped its development from the late 19 sos until a change of policy in the early 198os turned the nation's resources to civilian production. By 1989, as measured by total value of output, two-thirds of the military industry had been converted.1 Generally speaking, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) defined and implemented China's technological advancement for the first 40 years of the People's Republic, and the nation's strategic weapons programs determined the essential composition and pace of that modernization effort. Up to the 198os, a large share of China's total industrial production was organized under the military and controlled in secret by it. The military sector, moreover, virtually monopolized the most technologically advanced parts of China's industry and absorbed its best talent and scarce resources. The military dominated large plant construction, mineral and chemical processing from mines to finished product, the manufacture of fine machine tools and optics, the entire electronics and instrumentation industry, all aviation, most shipbuilding, most of the automotive industry, and virtually all research (including that in the Chinese Academy of Sciences) that had any military significance.2 From the 19 sos on, military specialists ran large, technically demanding projects-everything from fabricating missiles and nuclear-powered submarines to producing computers and space-age plastics. Many received training abroad, knew and worked with foreigners, and grasped the significance of the technological age. Even though many of these specialists were forced to pursue their careers in the rustic hinterland, most managed

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to stay in close touch with powerful mentors in Beijing. The pervasive and enduring personal and institutional networks they fashioned remain relevant to this day. By examining the building of the Project 09 submarines, we thus illuminate the maturing not only of a critical sector of the defense industry-its size, quality, industrial networking, leadership, and development-but also of its political power and professional outlook. The Creation of the Defense Industry

With the proclamation of the People's Republic on October r, 1949, the new government assumed formal control of 68 munitions plants.3 Before the year was out, it reorganized these plants, as well as the PLA's own defense facilities in the former revolutionary base areas, and set up what was first called the Ordnance Industry Office and then (in May 1950) the General Ordnance Bureau under the Ministry of Heavy Industry to run them.4 In October 1950, soon after Beijing's decision to enter the Korean War (which lasted until July 19 53), the central leadership convened a national ordnance conference in order to expedite arms production, and the following January, the Central Ordnance Commission (1951-54) was established to manage the assimilation of Soviet weaponry and the building of the nation's own defense industry.5 In the next years, a bewildering array of bureaucratic organs entered and vanished from the scene. The General Ordnance Bureau, for example, was first put under the joint jurisdiction of the Ministry of Heavy Industry and the Central Ordnance Commission in 19 5 r and then replaced, in August 1952, by the newly created Second Ministry of Machine Building.6 (The body then called the Second Ministry was in charge of the development of conventional weapons. It is not to be confused with the Second Ministry familiar to us from earlier chapters. With a reorganization in 19 58, the nomenclature changed, with the old Second Ministry becoming the First, and the Third, overseer of the nuclear industry, becoming the Second.) Zhao Erlu, a man with extensive experience in logistical work in the Red Army, was the logical first choice to run the ministry.' With the concurrence of the Central Military Commission's armaments department, Zhao listed aeronautics and electronics as the two "weakest links" to be fortified in order to wage the Korean War and meet the nation's long-term defense requirements. Determined to build a base for China's own arms industry, his ministry gave precedence to creating basic research institutes in electronics, optics, aeronautics, and special materials.8 Zhao launched this enterprise with a barebones number of technicians, fewer than r,ooo all told. At the same time, Zhao drafted an ambitious plan that called for refurbishing the existing defense plants within a two-year period

The Submarine and for organizing an interlocking network of facilities capable of meeting the three-to-five-year production goals in aircraft, military electronics, tanks, and heavy artillery. Zhao's plan rested on the assumption of substantial Soviet aid. And indeed, in a Sino-Soviet accord concluded in 19 53,41 of the 156 key industrial facilities the Kremlin agreed to help assemble were directly connected to the output of conventional weapons.9 (A mere six of these, we may note, were navy-related, since the Korean War had by then forced the Chinese leaders to assign priority to building the air force. 10 ) Soviet financial assistance figured even more importantly in the efforts of Zhou and others to build a modern defense industry. According to one senior Soviet adviser, most of the nearly $2 billion in Soviet credits to China from 19 so to 19 59 was used to pay for war equipment, machinery for munitions plants, and other big military enterprises. Thirty percent of the roughly 250 industrial facilities eventually outfitted by the Soviet Union were in the defense sector.11 When the Second Ministry and the Ministry of Electrical Industry were merged into the First Ministry of Machine Building in 1958, Zhao Erlu remained on as minister of the reorganized body. His job of constructing a modern defense industrial system was not made the easier by the fact that Mao Zedong had now decreed a new "general line" promoting mass-based projects and the communization of the countryside.12 Nevertheless, defense-related missions continued to receive a green light, and these missions included R&D on strategic weapons. It was at this point that the central scientific and industrial organs in our story-the Fifth Academy responsible for the strategic missile project, the (new) Second Ministry of Machine Building, and the body that administered and supervised it, Nie Rongzhen's Defense Science and Technology Commission-were set up. 13 The pursuit of these missions already diverted immense sums of money from the state budget to the military and complicated the implementation of civilian programs by the time Nie's commission took charge. For this reason, Mao Zedong had acted as early as April 19 56 to settle the appropriate relationship between the civilian and defense sectors. In his report "On the Ten Major Relationships," he declared that precedence should be given to constructing the overall economy, for "only with the faster growth of economic construction can there be greater progress in defense construction." As Mao saw it, the defense industry was a component of the national economy and had to serve the needs of civilian economic development as well as of defense. 14 Nonetheless, when Chinese scholars in the mid-1970s analyzed how Mao's somewhat confusing military-civilian formula had been carried out over the previous decade, they concluded that the defense

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sector had cont~nued to "possess considerable independence and initiative." This sector, one article said, had capitalized on the "latest scientific and technical achievements" and "continued to put forth demands on other industries." 15 In fact, Mao's formula favoring civilian construction had been ignored. For the military, then, the concern was not a loss of resources to civilian industries, but improving their own supply system by integrating research, trial manufacture, and series production into a coherent R&D process for both conventional and strategic weapons.16 To this end, in December 19 59, roughly a year after the Central Military Commission had formed Nie Rongzhen's commission, it authorized yet another body, the National Defense Industrial Commission (NDIC). 17 Nine months later, still another ministry of machine building, the Third, was spun off from the First as a separate organ under the NDIC to be in overall charge of conventional arms and military equipment production.' 8 The unending search for organizational panaceas reflected both a resolve to stay apace of the evolving R&D process and the politics of high technology in the People's Republic. 19 The constantly shifting organizational map mirrored the course of those politics in the decade that followed. We discussed these shifts in our study of the making of the atomic bomb and thus will recount only the points most relevant to this discussion. The NDlC lasted until September 1963, when it was merged into the National Defense Industry Office (NDIO); the NDIO had been created in November 1961 to coordinate relations between the NDIC and Nie's commission. Marshal He Long headed the NDIC until its demise, while Chief of the General Staff Luo Ruiqing led the NDI0.20 Both He Long and Luo, who had close ties, were on the Politburo; Nie Rongzhen was not? 1 From 1961 to 1963, Nie has told us, "The functions and powers of the [principal] organizations were as follows: the Defense Science and Technology Commission was in charge of scientific research on weaponry and military equipment; the National Defense Industrial Commission was in charge of the production of weaponry and military equipment; and the National Defense Industry Office was in charge of coordinating and maintaining relations between the scientific research and production of weaponry and military equipment." 22 Because the Soviet Union had supplied most of the nation's next-generation conventional arms and related technologies, the NDIC-led Third Ministry opened a few facilities for research and development but focused for the most part on modifying Sovietsupplied weapons instead of creating new ones. As a result of this focus, the task of developing strategic weapons was effectively left at first to scientists and engineers under Nie Rongzhen's command.

The Submarine

That primacy gave way in 1962, when the central leadership authorized Luo Ruiqing to take command of a considerable part of the strategic weapons development from Nie's commission? 3 In response, NDIC/NDIO officials, with the political muscle of He Long and Luo Ruiqing to back them up, gained control of R&D for virtually all arms. A fierce turf battle between the two powerful networks led by Nie and by He Long and Luo Ruiqing ensued.24 The expanded reach of the NDIC/NDIO, however, enlarged the base of political support for the strategic weapons programs just as many leaders were beginning to question them. Power Politics and the Integration of Research and Production In Chapter 2, we discussed the personal aspects of this rivalry and its disastrous results for Luo Ruiqing on the eve of the Cultural Revolution; here we focus primarily on the impact of the feuding on the defense industry. We recall that the domestic crises following the rupture of relations with Moscow and the collapse of the Great Leap Forward intensified the wrangling between the two networks even as all concurred on the goals of national unity and overall military preparedness. Throughout the early 196os, the NDIC/NDIO group, on the one side, and Nie and his colleagues at the Defense Science and Technology Commission, on the other, quarreled incessantly as funds and resources dried up and as the prospect of large-scale fighting in India and Indochina increased. In many cases, the functions and powers of the three organs were vague and overlapping. Moreover, the three did not have the last word. Although personal interests and bureaucratic rivalries often inflamed the policy debates on how to bolster the defense effort, in the final analysis Mao alone determined the outcome. Until he intervened decisively, the dissension among the three principal organizations festered. The top military elite was thus sundered at a time when military threats and the disarray of central programs in the aftermath of the post-Leap crises made genuine harmony throughout the military industry imperative. Many top Politburo leaders were themselves closely bound to one or other of the two rival networks and predictably took sides in the contest. Mao simply vacillated or remained aloof. For months, no real effort was made to reconcile the personal and ideological animosities dividing the military, but in October 1962, Luo Ruiqing saw an opportunity to take action. He submitted a report to Mao Zedong suggesting the creation of a high-level coordinating body that ostensibly would reconcile the opposing positions. His proposed organizational solution would erase the persistent inequities in funding the conventional programs while ensuring that the nuclear weapons project would receive the support it needed from the

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NDIC and the NDIO. It also would fortify his own commanding position. He advocated that "a special leading body should be set up to take charge of China's defense scientific and technological program." Mao approved Luo's report on November 3?5 At a Politburo meeting convened to consider ways to implement it, Liu Shaoqi stressed, "Only if Premier Zhou [Enlai] handles the matter can the problem be solved." The Politburo agreed? 6 So it was that on November 17, 1962, the Politburo created the body usually known in its first years as the Fifteen-Member Special Commission. Most vice-premiers and top leaders of the military industrial bureaucracy joined the original roster. Zhou became its head, and Luo Ruiqing (as powerful office director) and Zhao Erlu (Luo's deputy at the NDIO) were made responsible for the commission's day-to-day business.U "Afterward," Nie Rongzhen says, "every important test and all existing problems we encountered in the development of the liangdan projects [for nuclear weapons and strategic missiles] would be submitted to the special commission for discussion and settlement." 28 Nie does not mention that the commission also assumed control over the even more secret Project 09 when it was restarted in 196 5. The commission, which reportedly had only a small permanent staff, did not attempt to play a direct role in that project's operations. For this, it heavily relied on the administrative personnel of the NDI0? 9 But the commission had sweeping decision-making powers, which it exercised in periodic plenary meetings, and it was given a more imposing name, the Central Special Commission, in March r 96 5, when the Politburo extended its assignments to include the strategic missile project.30 Many Chinese believe that the creation of this coordinating body put Nie at a disadvantage in the competition with He Long and Luo Ruiqing. However, it is clear that whatever additional power He and Luo may have gained by the reorganization was balanced by the increasing authority of Lin Biao, who not only served as minister of defense but was also moving to affect all decision making within the Central Military Commission. Lin was no friend of He Long and Luo, and by the mid-r96os, Lin more than any other official was extending his influence over the Chinese military apparatus. Still, the balance of political power was not all that clear to the participants at the time, and none could have predicted Lin's ultimate fate. As we have noted in our study of the nuclear weapons project, the merger of the NDIC into the NDIO in 1963 allowed the NDIO to enlarge its role in the defense industry because it could now control the Fifth Academy's strategic missile development, as well as the Second Ministry's production of

8o

The Submarine

nuclear fuels, plant construction, and industrial production. Nie's authority in the defense industrial arena was thus confined to research on strategic weaponry.31 Parallel to the changes in the defense industry was the evolution of the defense science organs. By 1964, four academies formed the core of those organs: the Fifth (missile), Sixth (aviation), Seventh (warship), and Tenth (radio electronics); the most important for this study is the Seventh Academy. Though the four academies were formally subordinate to the Ministry of National Defense, in practice they reported to Nie Rongzhen's Defense Science and Technology Commission, since the ministry was no more than a facade. 32 Conflicts often occurred between these organs of basic research and the industrial plants designated to execute their designs, leading to serious interruptions in the development of military hardware.33 Faced with a situation in which plant officials all too often resisted what they saw as intrusive assignments outside their normal annual plans and in case after case fought the academies over such jurisdictional questions as job allocations and standard setting, Chinese leaders looked for a way to resolve these conflicts. One way open to them was to emulate the Soviet military industrial structure and connect the plants chosen for trial production to the pertinent research institutes. But the Central Military Commission believed that the backwardness of China's economy precluded this option. The search for a solution led to another idea: perhaps close ties could be forged between research organs and industrial facilities by attaching the four academies to the relevant ministries. The military commission tested this last option in the nuclear weapons program as the most promising solution for all the strategic weapons projects, and mirabile dictu it seemed to work. In organizing the nuclear weapons effort, the military commission moved the Northwest Nuclear Weapons Research and Design Academy (usually referred to by its code-name, the Ninth Academy) to the control of the Second Ministry. After tinkering with the details of this merger over several years, the commission in November 1964 adopted Luo Ruiqing's proposal to extend the practice to all the other projects. In a brief, eightcharacter directive-buyuan jiehe, changsuo guagou (Merge academies into the ministries, couple the factories and research institutes)-it integrated the four core academies (the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth) into their related ministries and ordered a general augmenting of the ties between all other research institutes and factories. Mao Zedong assigned Luo Ruiqing to carry out the directive. Luo in turn placed his own prestige on the line with the bold claim that the change would benefit both research and production over the long term. In January

Military Industry 196 5, the Fifth Academy and several factories from the Third, Fourth, and Fifth ministries became the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building, in charge of the missile program.34 Later in the year, several other academies (the Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, and Artillery) were brought into their relevant ministries? 5 With the six military industrial ministries (Second through Seventh), as well as their newly affiliated academies, now under the jurisdiction of Luo's NDIO, the role of Nie's commission in the strategic weapons programs was further diminished, restricted to formulating guidelines for defense science-and-technology development and for running various weapons test bases. By August 196 5, Luo had apparently emerged the victor in his political competition with Nie Rongzhen, and the open controversies between the NDIO and the Defense Science and Technology Commission momentarily subsided. The legacy of earlier encounters would not be overcome so easily, however, and the hidden antagonism between the two groups simmered and then steadily intensified as the nation moved toward the Cultural Revolution.36 It was in this climate that the Chinese restarted the nuclearpowered submarine project.

Shipbuilding Within the Industrial and Scientific Systems The shipbuilding industry followed its own tortuous organizational path through the years, culminating in the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which has been in charge of most of the large shipyards since 1982.37 This ministry/corporation had its beginnings in the Shipbuilding Industry Bureau, which started life in 1950 under the Ministry of Heavy Industry and then was moved in 19 52 to the administration of the First Ministry.38 The following year, upon the Soviet Union's agreement to sell China the licenses to build five types of warships and the wherewithal for them, the bureau began enlarging the country's principal shipyards. Later, in 1959, Moscow approved the sale to China of design plans, technical data, and relevant equipment for additional warships and naval missiles. 39 But the program stalled before it got properly started, with the Soviet Union's decision the next year to cease supplying the requisite data, equipment, and components.40 In the spring of 1960, as the rift with Moscow was growing, an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission decided to give priority to assembling the Golf class (diesel-powered missile) and Romeo class (dieselpowered attack) submarines from the remaining Soviet equipment and components. By then the Chinese had expanded the Dalian (in Liaoning Province) and Huangpu (near Guangzhou) yards and constructed the Bohai yard near Huludao, Liaoning. The 1960 decision caused yet another

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round of heavy investment in the three shipyards as the nation perforce moved toward self-reliance.41 After some further organizational changes, the Shipbuilding Industry Bureau (Ninth Bureau) was handed over to the Third Ministry, which had been established in September r 960 to oversee the self-reliant development of conventional weapons. Three years later, the bureau split off from the Third Ministry to become the Sixth Ministry of Machine Building.42 Closely affiliated with the navy, the Sixth Ministry then began to exercise the major role in fashioning the industrial network for shipbuilding. In 1961, the navy created the Warship Research and Design Academy (Seventh Academy) out of the six research institutes under its Science and Technology Research Department and some research facilities that had been attached to the Third Ministry. By the end of the year, the navy had these various institutes at work on warship design, warship power plants, underwater weapons, navigation, special auxiliary engines, acoustics, electronics, materials, and technology.43 When the Sixth Ministry acquired the Seventh Academy in 1965, it had at its command a comprehensive array of organizations devoted to shipbuilding.44 The Central Military Commission's decisions in the spring of 1960 also prompted the formation of a high-level experts' committee to give advice on shipbuilding. Specifically, the navy and the relevant industrial departments jointly founded a senior scientific research group for grappling with the key technical problems they faced in copying Soviet warships, including the Golf and Romeo submarines, now that Moscow's support was coming to an end. The military commission also charged the navy with developing indigenous naval weapons and equipment. In 1969, as part of the changes wrought during the Cultural Revolution, the commission and the State Council replaced the expert-dominated research group with the Shipbuilding Industry Leading Group under Li Zuopeng, first political commissar of the navy. As a government apparatus above the ministry but under the State Council, Li's group, composed of cadres from the General Staff, the navy, the Defense Science and Technology Commission, the NDIO, the Sixth Ministry, and other military industrial ministries, had more power than its predecessor to direct research and development on warship construction. The navy's deputy commander, Zhou Xihan, ran the group's daily affairs.45 Other organizations also took shape within the highest echelons of the navy in the 19 sos and r96os. For example, it created a shipbuilding organ in the winter of 1950 that two years later became the Ship Repairing and Shipbuilding Department. This body, which after a number of subsequent reorganizations, became the Naval Equipment Department in 1963, set

Military Industry the procedures and management regulations for all navy shipyards, dock facilities, and factories.46 In the Cultural Revolution, all departments involved in the procurement and maintenance of warships and naval weapons fell victim to the national confusion. The Naval Equipment Department collapsed and was only resurrected (as the Naval Equipment and Technology Department) in 1974.47 This department thereafter was made responsible for determining the technical specifications for all Project 09 submarines.48 Evolution of the Industrial and Scientific Systems Just as the shipbuilding network was coming together in the mid-196os, the Cultural Revolution destroyed the power of Luo Ruiqing and He Long and ruptured the system that had been recently installed to run China's overall defense industry. For a brief moment, it was Nie Rongzhen's turn to gain control of the industry for his organization, though given the danger to all "authorities" in these years, his motives were more defensive than opportunistic. He sought to insulate the industry from the upheaval, and because of the collapse of the high command, not just the removal of his rivals, Nie acted to take the defense research academies, including the Seventh, away from the various embattled ministries.49 On March 20, 1967, Mao accepted Nie's suggestion to put research under military rule, and authorized Nie's commission to take charge of the Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Twentieth (ordnance) academies, along with four design academies (strategic and tactical missiles) under the Seventh Ministry. The commission later assumed control of several other military research academies and of the research organs under the Chinese Academy of Sciences' New Technological Bureau. Its leader and main units removed, the NDIO's authority evaporated. In response to Mao's March 20 decision, Zhou Enlai announced at a high-level meeting in April that military control committees would be dispatched to the six military industrial ministries (Second-Seventh). Within two months, all the rest of the ministries were placed under direct military rule.50 The navy not only took charge of the Sixth Ministry, but sent out hundreds of military teams to oversee all naval research institutes, shipyards, and shipbuilding facilities. On October 25, 1967, Mao approved Nie Rongzhen's proposal to consolidate the defense science system into 18 research and design academies under his Defense Science and Technology Commission. Four months later, in line with another of Nie's proposals, the Central Military Commission conferred new code numbers on these 18 academies.51 By early 1968, Nie's mandate covered 133,000 technicians and workers in more

The Submarine than roo research institutes and more than ten trial-production plants attached to them. 52 Nie had reached the zenith of his administrative career. His preeminence was short-lived. Nie's remarkable success in expanding his domain was regarded by others in the elite as too aggressive and personally threatening, and they now acted against him. In February, Mao criticized the Defense Science and Technology Commission for using a wrong slogan ("support the correct leadership of the Party Committee of the Defense Science and Technology Commission with comrade Nie Rongzhen as its core") and thus by inference damned Nie.53 On March 23, 1968, Yang Chengwu, acting chief of the General Staff, and two assistants were arrested, and Lin Biao and Jiang Qing ordered their cohorts to search out Yang's "black backer." Everyone in the top command immediately knew that this order constituted a not-so-disguised dagger pointed at Nie, Yang's former army boss and presumed political "backer." Mao as usual remained passive in response to the accusations made by Lin and Jiang; he did so even when his close comrades of yesteryear were the targets.54 By not shielding Nie but letting the Lin-Jiang order stand, Mao sealed Nie's fate, and in April Nie was virtually stripped of his powers.55 Thereafter, the radicals launched struggle campaigns throughout the defense science apparatus and assailed Nie for his advocacy of "a major buildup of the defense science system." 56 In addition, Mao's elder daughter, Li Min, a senior cadre in Nie's commission, and her band of zealots accused Nie of attempting to "set up an impregnable 'independent kingdom,'" and to "foster in a big way a 'mountain stronghold'" with himself as the core.57 Nie was paying the price for his gains following the ouster of Luo Ruiqing. After Nie's fall, the leadership structure at the Defense Science and Technology Commission simply dissolved. A few months later, Mao assigned Wang Bingzhang, minister of the Seventh Ministry, to take over as acting head of the commission and to try to restore order to it.58 That assignment was part of a design, reflected in a series of Politburo decisions, to readjust the defense industrial and scientific networks from top to bottom. But before these decisions could be implemented, war drums began to beat across the land. As the year wore on, the relations between China and the Soviet Union steadily deteriorated, and in March 1969, fighting erupted along their common border. A war between them appeared imminent, or so Mao believed, with the result that the nation's defense budget jumped a full 34 percent that year.59 Whatever plans the central leadership had for a rationalization of the defense industry now went by the boards as the country geared up for war. In April 1969, after the conclusion of the Ninth Party Congress, the Central

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Committee directed the Administrative Group (Banshi Zu) of the Central Military Commission to take over the conventional weapons sector from the Defense Science and Technology Commission.60 In August, the Central Military Commission appointed four leading groups headed by deputy chiefs of the General Staff to oversee the crash development of conventional arms needed for a major conflict with the Soviet Union: the Aviation Industry Leading Group under Wu Faxian; the Shipbuilding Industry and Scientific Research Leading Group and the Telecommunication Industry Leading Group, both under Li Zuopeng; and the Conventional Ordnance Leading Group under Qiu Huizuo.61 As the war fever intensified, so did the dictatorship mentality within the nation's defense industry and science academies. On December 22, the military commission created the National Defense Industry Leading Group (Guofang Gongye Lingdao Xiaozu), with Qiu Huizuo, an associate of Lin Biao, as head. De facto, the group replaced the long defunct NDIO, and the commission charged Qiu with carrying out the NDIO's coordinating work in conventional weapons development. The group quickly asserted its jurisdiction over the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth ministries and the academies attached to them.62 By 1970, several other academies responsible for R&D on conventional armaments were transferred from the Defense Science and Technology Commission to either the industrial ministries or the military services. That spring, as noted, the military commission once more merged academies into the ministries and factories with research institutes, restoring what it had done six years earlier but what had been undone in the Cultural Revolution. The Defense Science and Technology Commission's authority was once again limited to monitoring the strategic weapons programs." The commission thereafter was in charge of only the Second Ministry (including the Ninth Academy), the Seventh Ministry and its four academies, and three weapons test bases-'-Base 20 (strategic missile), Base 21 (nuclear weapons), and Base 22 (tactical missile).64 If one had trouble keeping track of the labyrinthine bureaucracy before, the task now became hopeless. Figure 4 provides a somewhat simplified road map. Wang Bingzhang was soon to pay an even dearer price than his predecessor for his affiliation with the Lin Biao "clique." In the wake of Lin's death in September 1971, Mao launched a purge of military officers associated with him, and Wang was listed as one of Lin's "sworn followers" and summarily imprisoned.65 The following February, the central leadership ordered a seven-man study team under Gao Weisong and Liu Xiyao to root out any of "Lin's followers" still operating in the commission and its subordinate bodies.66 With the backing of firebrands such as Li Min, the

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Central Special Commission

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Defense Industry Leading Group

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Fig. 4· Organization of the defense industry, Dec. 1969

Conventional Ordinance Leading Group

I Ministry Fifth I

I Shipbuilding Industry & Scientific Research Group

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team members conducted a frenzied search for likely scapegoats, many of whom were publicly vilified and dismissed. The list of possible successor leaders at the commission steadily dwindled. The purge of Lin Biao's clique and other elements in 1971 represented the readjustment process gone amok, and few in the bowels of the "system" any longer understood the authority structure, had any faith in it, or much cared. In September 1973, the military commission and the State Council restored the NDIO with Fang Qiang as director to replace the National Defense Industry Leading Group, and charged it with overseeing the conventional weapons programs, including the shipbuilding industry and other weapons programs.67 Via the Sixth Ministry, the resurrected NDIO issued new directives to the various shipyards and plants that manufactured equipment and components for warships, but there was little incentive to heed these orders, which had a half-life of a few weeks at best. In 1974, Mao made matters worse when he unleashed a movement to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius. Neither was in fact his real target, however. The political campaign was actually aimed at Zhou Enlai, whose power was sharply diminished from then to the end of his life, in January 1976. The terminally ill Zhou simply could no longer protect whatever remained of the small island of sanity in the Politburo. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and her extremist associates were secretly pleased and used the movement to gain ascendancy over the Defense Science and Technology Commission and the defense bodies under it.68 Their disciples started wresting power from officers at all levels on the pretext of "developing the movement in depth." 69 Despite the relentless hunt for political scapegoats, the formal table of organization at the top, as shown in Figure 4, remained relatively unchanged, if largely irrelevant, for the next several years. The leaders of the defense industrial bureaucracy were mostly engaged in a holding operation and made only a few modifications in their organizational charts. One of these found the principal ship design body, the Seventh Academy, which had reported to the navy since 1970, shifted to the joint control of the weakened NDIO and Sixth Ministry in 1975.70 But like the others, this was a mere paper move, and the Central Military Commission did not make any important changes in the structure of the defense industrial bureaucracy until July 29, 1982, when the NDIO, the Defense Science and Technology Commission, and the office of the Science and Technology Equipment Committee of the Central Military Commission were amalgamated into the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND).71 Under the leadership of Chen Bin, COSTIND soon assumed dominion over the Second, Third,

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Fifth, and Seventh ministries and related research academies. It has been in overall command of all weapons programs.72 Despite the monumental absurdity of political life in China from 196 5 to 1976, the pieces of the shipbuilding "system" were eventually up and running, though far behind schedule and more or less on their own. As of 1987, the system embraced 528 shipyards with 54o,ooo staff and workers, 162 factories, and over So research institutes.73 It is these organs that manufactured and assembled the components for the Project 09 submarines. War Preparedness in the Third Line One additional event heavily influenced that production process: the creation of the Third Line?4 During the Third (1966-70) and Fourth (19717 5) Five-Year Plans, China carried out a massive program of industrial construction in its remote interior.75 The program constituted a "strategic shift in China's economic distribution" toward the counties south of the Great Wall and west of the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway. The effort was concentrated first in Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Yunnan, and Gansu, and then expanded to the western parts of Henan, Hubei, and Hunan and to Qinghai and Ningxia? 6 Historians may see in Mao's Third-Line policy reflections of the profound dualism in China's recent past. Mao, the man from the interior, belonged in spirit to what he regarded as the nation's rustic heartland and detested the Western-oriented coastal centers. The treaty ports along the coasts and banks of the major rivers had served as points of foreign contact, modest industrialization, and revolutionary ferment, to be sure, but they had also constituted a world apart. That foreign world, as the geographer Rhoads Murphey has written, had a "profound impact on the Chinese mind" and "hurt China psychologically more than it helped her economically, at least up to 1949." Mao, after his rise to power, could not remove the treaty-port "cancers on the Chinese body," but he could attempt to stem their growth by shifting the locus of modernization to the Third Line.77 Although we shall concentrate on the military strategic aspects of the Third Line, we suspect that Mao's attachment to it lay deeper in his soul. Chinese scholars trace the origins of this strategic shift to Mao's speech "On the Ten Major Relationships," delivered in April 19 56. At that point, fully 70 percent of China's industry was located in the coastal regions. Mao declared that "a period of peace for a decade or more" probably lay ahead and implied that a window existed to repair this imbalance. "The notion that the atomic bomb is already overhead and about to fall on us in a matter of seconds is a calculation at variance with reality." Thus, industrial

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construction could continue in the coastal areas, he said, but "without doubt, the greater part of the new industry should be located in the interior."78 Though his true concerns lay elsewhere as he began to lay the groundwork for the Great Leap Forward, Mao's message was clear, but his ministers could read the tea leaves in Mao's unsteady cup and ignored him; they kept right on constructing plants in the coastal provinces. There the matter rested until 1964, when escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Mao's mounting fears of an imminent war led him to once again fasten on the interior?9 At a work conference of the Party Central Committee in May and June, he first linked the drafting of the Third FiveYear Plan to preparations for the "inevitable" military conflict and then issued one of his well-known calls: "You should speed up the construction of Panzhihua [in Sichuan]. Only when you complete the construction of Panzhihua can I sleep well." "The outcome of war," he added, "will be decided not by the atomic bomb, but by conventional weapons." 80 His conclusion: "As long as imperialism exists, there is always the danger of war. We must build up the strategic rear." 81 This time he would not be defied. A few days later, he summoned local Party committees to pay heed to military affairs and to get ready to fight a nuclear war: "When war begins, it will be necessary to depend upon China to hold on." 82 It is more accurate, then, to date Mao's shift in policy from the 1964 conference, not from the earlier speech. This was where he decided that "getting ready to fight a war" meant "giving priority to determining the strategic [industrial] distribution and strengthening the construction in the Third-Line region while formulating long-term plans." 83 This was where we first find him defining a plan for promoting "the vast strategic rear region" of the Third Line. And he was doing so "in preparation for the possibility of war." 84 As shown on the map on page 90, Mao and his supporters conceived the nation as consisting of three zones, with the First Line composing the coastal and border regions, the Third Line the strategic rear, and the Second Line the ambiguous territory between the two. The American actions in Vietnam, not economic principles, dominated the definition of the Third Line and planning for it. In this formulation, Chinese policy makers were guided in large part by the Soviet Union's construction of an emergency strategic rear area east of the Ural Mountains during the height of the German offensive.85 On August 5, in the aftermath of the Tonkin Gulf incident, the U.S. air force began bombing North Vietnam. Worried about the possible spread of the conflict to China, Mao pressed his colleagues on August r 7 and again on the 2oth to gear up for a probable war. He ordered industrial and research facilities to leave the coastal provinces for the Third Line in antic-

Gansu

China's Third-Line region. Source: Naughton, "Third Front," 3 54· Reproduced by permission.

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ipation of an "imperialist invasion." Support for construction in the Third Line, he said, would be a litmus test of "whether you are a revolutionary." 86 A few days later, the State Council held a meeting to study how to implement Mao's order. Luo Ruiqing, head of the NDIO, also convened a national defense industry conference attended by senior officials from the six defense-related industrial ministries to consider how to start large-scale industrial construction in the Third Line.87 Premier Zhou Enlai and Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping took charge of this effort, and no other national program received higher priority.88 The State Council later in the year set up a new body, the Minor State Planning Commission (Xiao Jiwei), to plan the construction,89 and dispatched "several massive work teams" to survey the Third-Line territories for plant sites as other groups set to work on housing, logistics, and communications. By early 1965, a comprehensive plan for the construction of the Third Line had been prepared, and from a glance at the draft, it is obvious that the planners had deliberately chosen some of China's most mountainous and inaccessible regions for their factory and institute sites. They proudly reminded themselves that "the roads in Sichuan are more difficult than going to Heaven." 90 If they could not travel these roads easily, neither could an invading army. Early 1965 also saw the first of a succession of oversight groups established, with the creation of the Southwest Third-Line Construction Committee in February. Then, in April, the resurrected State Construction Commission was charged with overseeing construction there and in all other parts of the Third Line. Expansion brought another area-specific body, the Northwest Third-Line Construction Committee in January 1966. Still later, provincial-level command organs were established for onsite authority in the Southwest and Northwest.91 In August 1965, the State Construction Commission convened aNational Relocation Work Meeting, which reaffirmed Mao's call to base the nationwide relocation on preparations for "an early war, an all-out war, and a nuclear war." 92 It also promulgated the Third-Line's guiding principle: "decentralization, closeness to mountains, and concealment" (fensan, kaoshan, yinbi).93 Two months later, the priority for the Third Line appeared in the new five-year plan: "Defense construction claims precedence over all other construction; construction in the Third Line should be augmented to gradually change [our country's] industrial distribution." 94 Then the westward tide began. That winter, in what was seen as a race against time, Beijing transferred r.6 million workers to the interior, and by February, the need to manage this huge migration and the logistics for

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it led to the creation of the Capital Construction Engineering Corps.95 The initial priority, consequently, went to making roads and raillines.96 In the next ten years, Beijing sent thousands of its best and brightest off to the Third Line in secret. (Even the term Third Line was classified.) Key industrial colleges (such as the China University of Science and Technology, the Tangshan Institute of Technology, the Harbin Military Engineering Institute, and the Naval Engineering Institute) and top technical personnel began moving to the west, and most of the university graduates in the mobilization decade ended up in the region.97 By the 1970s, the ratio of engineers and technicians to total staff members and workers was 200-300 percent higher in the Third-Line research and industrial facilities than in the coastal areas.98 The movement of so many educated personnel to these technology-intensive posts created such an extraordinary congregation of talent that the Chinese started referring to them as their "tigers hidden in the remote mountains." 99 For the critical defense industries, including those associated with Project 09, duplicate plants were built in the strategic rear with little thought given to cost. Only large-scale redundancy, it was believed, could assure China's survival in a nuclear war: "To deal with the possible outbreak of war, industries in the Third-Line regions were distributed in self-contained systems with all supporting facilities provided. Thus energy, raw and semifinished materials, machine-building, electronics, chemical, and defense industries formed their own fiefs. The coastal areas and the Third-Line region had separate industrial systems."' 00 The Third Line would serve as a secure base capable of supplying the weapons for a protracted global conflict. The Second Wave of Third-Line Development The Third-Line building process ran in cycles. The promising start of 1964-66 rapidly subsided under the onslaught of the Cultural Revolution. Third-Line construction was mostly halted in the next few years, but when violent clashes broke out on the Sino-Soviet frontier in March 1969, the "second high tide in construction of the Third-Line regions" began.101 Mao convened an emergency meeting on July 2 to discuss China's response to the impending Sino-Soviet military showdown, and the Third Line was his answer.102 Beijing's leaders again accelerated the transfer of strategic facilities to the Third Line in preparation for war. 103 In March 1970, the State Council instructed the industrial ministries to put a provincial-level construction program in place large enough to build ten self-contained defense industrial bases by 1972.104 In an attempt to ensure the fulfillment of the strategic

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weapons programs as scheduled, the Central Military Commission and the State Council adopted a resolution to put all the "key" defense projects and principal research bases, including those in Project 09, under military control.105 From 1969 to 1971, China drastically increased its investment in defense construction, and much of this went to the Third Line! 06 The investment placed a heavy burden on an already sagging economy. In 1971, China faced "three breaking points" (san ge tupo): the state had undertaken to employ more than 50 million people in government-run enterprises and agencies; it had to pay these people over 30 billion yuan; and it had to provide more than 40 billion kilograms of grain to urban dwellers. One result was inflation, and Zhou Enlai especially decried the rising money supply. 107 Mao recognized the burden of the Third Line, and the prospect of improving his relations with the United States appeared to provide a way out. Only when Mao reassessed the Soviet threat in the context of Sino-U.S. relations did the Third-Line crusade lose momentum. 108 That reassessment was reflected in the nation's annual economic plan for fiscal 1972, which returned to the principle that defense construction must fit the total needs of the national economy and have a lower priority than agriculture and light industry.109 In early 1973, Mao and Zhou Enlai approved the importing of $430 million worth of Western industrial equipment, all of which was to be installed in the coastal areas. 110 That decision marked the beginning of the end for the Third-Line policy.111 From 1973 on, ThirdLine construction was principally confined to either winding up key projects or rejuvenating established industrial units in order to manufacture complete sets of equipment. Defense budgets fell. 112 The Result of the Third- Line Policy

At best, this ten-year effort was a mixed blessing for China. The building of the Third-Line industries and institutes during the Third and Fourth Five-Year Plans, 1966-75, cost over 200 billion yuan (or roughly $8o billion at the then current rate of exchange). About 140 billion yuan went to new factories, out of a total industrial construction budget of 27 5 billion yuan for the years 1966-80.113 Over the 14 years between 196 5 and 1979, Third-Line investment accounted for 43·4 percent of the national total, and produced more than 2,200 medium- and large-sized enterprises, for a 48 percent share.114 Some of the sectoral figures are even more impressive. Most of the money invested in the aviation industry, for example, was poured into the Third Line (9 3 ·4 percent of the total in 1966-70, 8 3.2 percent in 1971-7 5 ).115 About one-fifth of the Third-Line budget-some 28 billion yuan (196 5-

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8o)-went to the defense industry alone, fashioning a military industrial complex composed of 483 manufacturing plants and 92 research academies and institutes.116 The new facilities included a large conventional weapons production base in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, some nuclear research and industrial bases in Sichuan, two electronics industrial bases in Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, two strategic missile research and industrial bases in Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces, three aviation industrial bases in Guizhou and Shaanxi provinces and the western part of Hubei Province, and several shipbuilding bases in Sichuan and Hubei provinces. By 1975, the ordnance factories in the region could manufacture almost half of the nation's conventional weapons, the aircraft plants two-thirds of the nation's military planes. 117 By the late 198os, these facilities could produce half of the nation's military hardware. 118 In terms of productive capacity, number of technical experts, and level of equipment, the Third-Line defense industry now surpasses the whole of the industry in the rest of the country.119 As impressive as all these developments may seem at first glance, Mao's decision to build the strategic Third Line led to staggering waste and uncertain results. On balance, the building of comparable facilities in the coastal areas would have cost far less. 120 Official investigations conducted in Sichuan and Shaanxi by 1989 revealed that almost half the enterprises operated below capacity or had not even begun production. More than 18 percent of the Third-Line investment between 1966 and 1978, totaling over 30 billion yuan, was reportedly squandered.121 Mao's fear of war and especially of air or missile strikes led to his policy of "decentralization, closeness to mountains, and concealment," and this policy resulted in near fatal drawbacks in practice.122 A significant number of research and industrial facilities were constructed in caves and underground, and in several places, this expensive, ill-planned, and wasteful effort halted for sheer lack of tunnel digging equipment.123 For example, the Sixth Ministry decided to construct a marine machinery production base in Wulong, Sichuan Province, but later abandoned the site after having spent millions on the tunnels. 124 Moreover, maintaining all the new facilities was a horrendous problem, placing a maximum burden on China's east-west transportation system. Dead-end rail lines and trunks had to be built or significantly upgraded to reach the mountain bases, and the excessive dispersal and inaccessibility of those facilities caused endless administrative confusion and a resulting misallocation of personnel and materieJ.l 25 The emphasis on speed and output precluded concern for the people involved. The "livelihood of workers and staff members was not taken into

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account," Chinese sources later admitted, and the policy of "decentralization, closeness to mountains, and concealment" in practice meant deprivation and boring isolation. The people in the relocated defense industries were supposed to create their own support infrastructure, including kindergartens, schools, hospitals, shops, cinemas, and bus companies, but these always came second on the list of priorities.126 Factory and institute managers became the de facto mayors of their communities and had to set up organs to oversee the employment of family members.127 In the end, these organs fell far short, and the managers had to introduce measures to counteract the repeated and unauthorized brain drain from the Third Line back to the coastal areas. All these measures failed. Thousands of professionals in the Northwest and in the Southwest slipped eastward to new jobs.128 In an attempt .to staunch the flow and extricate the Third-Line enterprises from their downward spiral, the State Council in 198 3 set up an office to readjust the distribution of the nation's industries and shift the focus to the coast again.129 Carrying out the policy of "unleashing fierce tigers out of remote mountains," the office worked along several lines: reconceptualizing the distribution of the entire industrial network, moving people and plants from the interior and reorganizing hundreds of enterprises in the Third Line, transferring technologies to civilian industry and shifting production from military hardware to a mixture of civilian and military products, and developing economic and technological cooperation between the interior and the coastal areas.130 In the course of this "readjustment," 121 of the 2,ooo large and medium-sized enterprises in remote mountain areas were removed to the coastal provinces in the years 1986-89.131 All the major facilities connected to Project 09, however, were kept in place. Shipbuilding in the Third Line This huge industrial system had a dramatic impact on China's strategic weapons. Our principal concern here is with the creation of the shipbuilding bases in the Third-Line regions, but we should keep in mind that the rush to the Third Line shaped the development of all defense industries. At the time Mao issued his edict in 1964, the navy was under instructions to modernize China's fleet, and plans for four large parts plants were on the drawing board.132 With the promulgation of the new policy, the Central Military Commission decided that three of these plants-which were scheduled to manufacture diesel engines and marine auxiliary engineswould be built in the Third Line.133 Obedient to the slogan "Make haste," the Sixth Ministry (shipbuilding) sent teams to survey the Third Line for appropriate sites in 1966, then set

The Submarine its three design and research organs to drawing up the plans for an array of yards and other facilities in the selected sites. Construction began right after the completion of the design drawings. 134 This was the start of a program that by 1980 brought 39 shipbuilding bases and 43 related research institutes to the interior. 135 The earliest and most important of these bases were in Sichuan, Hubei, and Jiangxi. The Sichuan base was the first to be constructed and became the largest, with three autonomous components: shipyards in Chongqing and Fuling; eight factories and associated research institutes near the city of Wanxian for the manufacture of navigation instruments; and seven diesel engine and machinery factories with associated research institutes in Jiangjin, Yongchuan, and Chongqing.136 The Jiangxi base, the next to follow, was already under construction before the Sichuan base was finished in the late 196os. The Jiujiang Instrument and Meter Plant there played a central role in developing the instrumentation for the early 09 submarines.137 Work also began on the Hubei base at Yichang and Yidu before the Sichuan base was completed. This complex, made up of three research institutes for developing underwater weapons, on-board electro-optical devices, infrared sensitive systems, and electronic instruments, and four plants for manufacturing diesel engines and on-board instrumentation, was also central to Project 09.138 The Third-Line policy also produced, among others, three medium-sized shipyards in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a large base near Lake Kunming, Yunnan Province, for conducting research on torpedoes and mines, and an expansion of the existing plant in Taiyuan (Plant 884) and an attached facility near Houma, Shanxi Province, for developing mines and torpedoes.139 In 1976, while construction in the Third Line region was still under way but winding down, General George Brown reported to the U.S. Congress that China had created defense programs with "long-range implications such as the construction of ... impressive new facilities· for producing large quantities of nuclear material, solid propellant missiles; [and] R&D initiatives addressing advanced airframes and sophisticated engines." 140 According to a U.S. air force study, a single plant in China would often design, manufacture, and test launch vehicle components or major subsystems, "which results in the duplication of research effort and training facilities."~ 41 About the same time, U.S. intelligence also noted a commitment in the missile field to work on high-temperature materials, structural materials and design, nuclear warhead design, electronic components, and aerodynamic test facilities. 142 What U.S. intelligence was watching was the miracle-or debacle-of the Third Line. How to evaluate that accom-

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plishment, which most experts in China unequivocally denigrated, very much depended on whose eye was doing the beholding. The Hidden Hazards in the Minor Third Line Building the Third Line was only part of Mao's plan. In 1964, he also called for the construction of defense-related industrial facilities in the "minor Third Line" (xiao sanxian). 143 This region constituted designated "rear areas" for provinces, autonomous regions, and centrally governed cities in the First and Second Line in the Northeast and along the coast; some sources suggest that the xiao sanxian order also applied to provincial-level organs in the Third Line itself. Thus instructed by Beijing, the governments at this level in the next decade created bases in remote areas for the production of light arms.144 The origins of Mao's thinking about the minor Third Line can be traced to his ideas about the multiple roles of rural people's communes, one of which was to turn the peasants into soldiers. As early as june 1958, he told an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission: "I am in favor of producing more light weapons to arm [our] broad-based militia [in the communes]." Two months later, he reiterated that various provinces should construct ordnance factories to produce rifles, submachine guns, light and heavy machine guns, mortars, bullets, and explosives. The next year, he endorsed the construction of defense industry in rear bases: "Proceeding from the necessity of training and combat readiness, various provinces should construct factories to produce weapons and ammunition for the militia." Some provinces did comply and put up munitions plants.145 When Mao hit on the term "minor Third Line" in July 1964, he once again demanded that the provincial-level authorities build their own ordnance factories, first for arms repairs and then their manufacture. 146 At a meeting of the Central Secretariat in August, Mao mentioned the need for defense industries in the minor Third Line.147 More talk and more planning followed, until the State Council in March 1965 ordered local authorities to commence the program.148 In November, Mao exhorted officials in East China to accelerate the effort and said, "If war breaks out, you shouldn't count on the Center for help. You should depend on yourselves. You should strive for a speed-up of the construction of your rear areas and achieve success within three to five years .... You yourselves should produce steel and weapons."~ 49

The motives that impelled Mao to initiate the minor Third-Line construction were more complex than this suggests. In these years, he worried most about the possible emergence of a "revisionist group" in the central leadership and then about a foreign invasion. His decision derived from

The Submarine his thinking about the impending grand struggle for power in what became the Cultural Revolution, as well as from his ideas about war.'' 0 His manifest motive, of course, was to expand the capacity for ordnance production of each locality in support of Chinese troops retreating from an invasion force moving inland.151 But his hidden intention was to create widely dispersed armed bands of loyalists who could counterbalance and, if necessary, defeat his opponents in the central leadership should they move against him. As early as June 8, 1964, Mao cautioned provincial-level authorities that "a province might rebel and declare independence" if "revisionists" assumed power in the centralleadership.152 By 1965, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, Mao apparently considered it unlikely that his revolutionary strategy would be realized in the coming showdown against his domestic foes unless he made his real intentions even more explicit. On October 10, he told the first secretaries of the Party committees of the Central Committee's six regional bureaus, You should make a success of the minor Third-Line construction .... If the revisionists assume power in the central leadership, you may revolt against them. You will be able to rebel once you have [defense-industry bases in] the Third Line .... You should pay attention so that from now on, you may refuse to carry out incorrect directives even from the centralleadership. 153

This call apparently anticipated the Cultural Revolution and the struggle against Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. With Mao's endorsement, Beijing put forward a three-year plan (196668) for a defense industrial network in the minor Third Line.154 In the next years, the local governments responded, and the xiao sanxian industry began taking shape in 17 provinces and autonomous regions. Thirty percent of the enterprises were defense-related. Provincial-level civilian and military officials jointly ran these enterprises, most of which produced small arms. 155 But many projects succumbed to the rising turmoil toward the end of the plan period, and a special conference was called to approve the investment of 8oo million yuan and to extend the timetable to 1969.156 Thereafter, local ordnance factories spread throughout the nation. As Mao predicted, the creation of the minor Third Line did toughen the local radicals, though not in the way he envisioned or wanted.* In most cases, these elements ended up using the arms against each other in fac*In the fall of 1976, right after Mao's death, the associates of the Jiang Qing clique in Shanghai used the munitions from factories under their control in the minor Third Line and Shanghai to support an abortive armed insurrection. For details, see Cao Zhang eta!.; Li Zhongshi and He Wannan; and "Last-Ditch Struggle," 127-28.

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tiona! battles rather than in support of Mao's revolutionary mission. Many if not most of the armed clashes occurred where the ordnance industry had been built up on a local basis and thus where guns could be seized by the rival groups.157 Along with the "second high tide" in defense construction after the border conflicts on the Sino-Soviet frontier in 1969, Mao pressed for a speedup of minor Third-Line defense construction. Beijing also directed the defense industrial ministries to take control of most of the minor Third-Line munitions factories as an emergency means to cope with a possible SinoSoviet war. 158 Construction funds flowed from Beijing until August 1973, when the crisis had subsided and control could be returned to the provincial-level officials.159 By 1980, 268 ordnance factories had been built in minor Third-Line localities to manufacture light arms. They employed 28o,ooo workers and technicians, and at a cost of 3.2 billion yuan, had manufactured 6 million guns, Ioo,ooo artillery pieces, and huge quantities of ammunition. 160 Small defense industrial bases had sprouted in most provinces and autonomous regions.161 China had become a nation of tiny armed bastions readying themselves for a war that never came. Turning Point The eastward shift away from the Third Line after the Cultural Revolution was accompanied by a major re-evaluation of China's modernization that affected the status of the defense industry and altered the strategic environment for Project 09 in the 198os. In the 1970s, vast problems were uncovered in both the civilian industrial sector and the defense industrial sector! 62 In May 1975, Deng Xiaoping, who was momentarily rehabilitated before another banishment, revealed the critical difficulties underlying the iron and steel industry. He blamed what he called sluggish production on the industry's "weak, lazy, and lax leadership." His solution was for the Party to "try to find and recruit into the leading groups cadres who are not afraid of losing their jobs" and for a struggle against factionalism in the plants. Deng also called on the cadres to implement Party policies more conscientiously and to establish "essential rules and regulations." 163 Deng was determined to straighten out the chaos in the defense industrial system. That same month, he said, "the two diametrically opposed factions of the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building do not even have patriotism, let alone socialism." He imposed a deadline for solving the factional strife within one month and ordered the Defense Science and Technology Commission to reorganize the leadership of the ministry! 64

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The Submarine

Some months later, Deng told a conference of defense industry leaders that they too needed "to establish bold leadership," to improve the quality of production, and to attend to the welfare ofthe workers, especially in the Third-Line factories. 165 At about the same time, he reaffirmed the soundness of the "Seventy Articles on Industrial Work" that had been adopted in r96r but ignored and then repudiated in the Cultural Revolution. Adherence to the articles, he argued, would have helped stabilize the defense industries. 166 He labeled the most common problems poor management and equipment lying in disrepair, and he apparently included the defense industrial system in his condemnation.167 The revelation of the poor management in that system prompted Deng to instruct the NDIO to convene a defense industry conference to discuss how to revitalize the leading bodies in the main defense enterprises and to rectify the whole military industrial front. 168 When Deng returned to power once again after the death of Mao, this time for good, he attacked these deficiencies with full force and called for the implementation of the eight-character guiding principle of "adjustment, reform, consolidation, and improvement" throughout the national economy. As Deng's program for demilitarization of the national economy moved into high gear, starting in 1979 and continuing into 1982, the nation's defense industries experienced a sharp reduction in orders for military hardware. Half of the military industrial enterprises had either to operate far below capacity or to cease production altogether. Almost all of those that survived limped along, hard hit by a lack of funds and an accumulation of unallocated military products. 169 The defense industrial system confronted one more drastic readjustment, thanks to a fundamental change in the Chinese leadership's estimation of war possibilities in the early r98os. In r98o, Deng Xiaoping twice pointed out that no major war was likely to erupt in the next five years. He later amended this, first to state that it was possible to delay an all-out war between China and the Soviet Union for at least ten years, and then at an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission in June 198 5, to extend the deadline beyond the year 2000.170 The military commission meeting thereupon agreed to cut the army by one million and to shift from war preparedness to peacetime development. (Later that year, an even more optimistic Deng predicted that China could focus on economic construction in a peaceful environment for the next 50 years. 171 ) The shift of the army's mission resulted in continued sharp reductions in the nation's defense budget. Between 19 so and r98 5, the military's share in the annual state budget averaged about r6.9 percent. From a high point of r8. 5 percent in 1979, the figure dropped over the next decade, to reach

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about 8 percent in 1989.172 There the shrinkage ended, perhaps only temporarily, in the wake ofthe Tiananmen incident ofJune 4, 1989.173 In 1991, in presenting the economic plan for the coming decade, Premier Li Peng said that China "should appropriately increase the outlay on national defence and work hard to develop defence science and technology, focusing on research in and manufacture of new weapons and equipment," but added that a concomitant emphasis should be on "converting military industrial production capacity to manufacture of civilian products." 174 Thus after the mid-198os, in contrast to the start-up years, Project 09 had to .compete for drastically limited defense funds and for critical equipment and talent in time of peace. These shifting priorities can be summarized as follows. In the early 198os, the line-up for funds for weapons and equipment put the army first, followed by the air force, and then the navy. The army stressed the development of anti-tank weapons and field air defense systems. From the mid198os to early 1991, the navy went to the head of the list, but the Gulf War prompted another review of the nation's preparedness.175 Since 1991, the military has demanded more money for upgrading air defense and early warning systems for both ground and naval forces, anti-submarine technologies, advanced aircraft, and an oceangoing fleet. 176 The military commission told COSTIND to get ready for an electronic war. 177 The result was a lowered priority for Project 09. Like all the military, the project leaders had to adjust to the revamped weapons procurement policies. They now took a new guiding principle: defense scientific research should go ahead of mass-production of military hardware (keyan xianxing), and quality should come first (zhiliang diyi). 178 Following the guiding principle, the military formulated a sixteencharacter weapons procurement policy to replace the previous one: duo yanzhi, shao zhuangbei, xinlao bingcun, zhubu gengxin. Loosely translated, this new policy assigned first importance to research and development and settled for supplying combat units with less up-to-date military hardware; old weapons would be maintained alongside new ones and would only be replaced gradually. 179 Almost lost in the policy shift was the notion of a special status for Project 09. Limited by insufficient funds, even the research facilities for defense were steadily downgraded and operated below capacity. In the mid-198os, for example, Institute 719, now renamed the Wuhan Second Ship Design and Research Institute, suffered a radical cut in its research budget. To make enough money for themselves, many experts on submarine design had to take on outside contract work, and some who had worked on Project 09 were shifted to designing automobile ferries and fishing vessels. The

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result was a growing feeling of insecurity at the institute, and the most qualified technicians started job-hunting for higher pay or for greater job security and career opportunities. Director Huang Xuhua asked: "Do the technical personnel engaged in sophisticated defense projects [in the United States, France, and Britain] need to work in sideline production or to raise funds by themselves?" 180 The years after 1982 must have been disheartening indeed for the director. The project to which he had devoted his career was in trouble. The development of the new SSBN/SLBM systems encountered many political, financial, and technical difficulties after 1982, and it was only the successful launch of the jL-1 in September 1988 that made the difference; that is, rescued the project. Without that success, Project 09 would probably have remained an orphan or been indefinitely suspended. In the 19 sos and 196os, revolutionary idealism and patriotism brought the nation's best minds into the strategic weapons programs, and Project 09 was a beneficiary. After the mid-r98os, personal gain and opportunism began to replace idealism and patriotism, and more and more college graduates refused their job assignments in defense-related work, especially at facilities located in remote areas such as the Third Line.181 The pool of qualified successors to carry on long-term projects was steadily eroding. Leading defense scientists warned their leaders that without a policy change, the "best qualified technical personnel would scatter within three to five years !" 182 Yet the potential of the defense industry remained high as the decade of the 198os ended. It "ranked among the world's largest"; by 1989, more than 3,ooo,ooo personnel were engaged in weapons programs at about 2,ooo defense plants and institutes, and more than I ,ooo other enterprises supported the defense production effort. 183 As of this writing, the fate of the defense industrial structure built over the past four decades hangs in the balance.

FIVE

Building and Deployment

As the network of military-run industries evolved in the post-Great Leap decades, the Central Military Commission gained mastery over substantial parts of the nation's economic resources and exerted ever greater influence over the state budget. 1 Factories, design institutes, and scientific centers proliferated as material resources and money became available to military planners. The commission set the agenda and priorities for all of these defense institutions, tracked their capabilities, and in time, predicting success, authorized the construction program for the nuclear submarines. It is this program to which we now turn. Following the Sino-Soviet agreement of February 19 59, the Soviet Union undertook to help China build two modern shipyards, the Bohai Shipyard, later formally named the Nuclear-Powered Submarine General Assembly Plant (Plant 431), in Huludao, Liaoning Province, and the Huangpu Shipyard (Plant 201), in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province? The First Ministry of Machine Building (later to be divided into several machine building ministries, including the Sixth for shipbuilding) planned both yards for submarine construction.3 It assigned the Bohai yard to build nuclear submarines, and the Huangpu yard to build conventional submarines.4 The two yards pioneered the use of indoor horizontal floating drydocks and lured the nation's most skilled builders to their work force. In 1965, the Central Special Commission reviewed the order from the high command to begin construction on the nuclear boat and decided that Bohai would install the nuclear reactor on the submarine only after the land-based prototype power plant had attained initial criticality. The yard would not be allowed to launch the nuclear attack submarine until the plant had reached its full rated power.5 As we have seen, the first of these requirements was met in August 1970. In the intervening years, 1965-70, the special commission had directed

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that all affected institutes expedite research on the materials and equipment needed for building the nuclear attack boat. By the end of the period, a variety of facilities in the military industrial system had received production orders related to Project 09, and despite setbacks caused by the Cultural Revolution, these orders were being met, though usually far behind schedule. Special high-strength structural alloy steels for the pressure hull, for example, were trial-cast by the Steel and Iron Research Academy in Beijing. For quality control, each steel plate, designed for a yield limit of 6okg/mm 2 (8 5, 7oolb/in2 ) or higher, had to carry a signed inspection certificate attesting to its proven properties; steels of this moderately high strength are rated HY8o and used for modern submarine construction in the West.6 Meanwhile, a battery plant in Zibo, Shandong Province, as another example, had begun manufacturing special lead-acid storage batteries, and other plants were manufacturing marine anti-fouling paints? As these products were being developed, the Bohai Shipyard laid the keel and began assembling the first nuclear attack submarine, code named 09-r, in November 1968.8

Construction of the Nuclear Attack Submarine (09-r) Welding the plates of the pressure hull together posed the first major challenge to the shipbuilders.9 The size, thickness, and complex shapes of 09's hull plates, the requirement to attach stiffening ribs and launch tubes, and the need to reduce the high stresses within the metal exceeded the competence of all but the most advanced welders. The sheer size of the hull made it impossible to heat-treat the whole hull, and cracks appeared in the welds when the necessary heat treatment was administered section by section. Over time, 95 percent of fatigue failures in Chinese submarines resulted from defective welds.10 The designers had stipulated that each weld should be capable of withstanding temperatures down to - 40°C and should have a yield limit rating (elasticity) of 70-8okg/mm2 at critical points and 56kg/mm 2 at all other seams on the hull. Because automatic welding had not yet attained the high quality and accuracy (or high speeds) found in modern nozzle-control systems, they set the ratio of automatic to manual welds at 50:50, in contrast to 60:40 for conventional submarines. Manual welds would be used on each irregular shape, and to a large extent 09-1 was hand-welded. 11 The Chinese, like the American and Soviet shipbuilders before them, had to devise a special welding rod or electrode, as well as novel techniques for welding the bulky pressure hull. The composition of the manual arc elec-

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trode has a powerful effect on the way metal is transferred to the metal pool in the seam between the plates. For the alloy steels resistant to low temperatures and high pressures, the welding engineers needed to fabricate special rods composed of a variety of metals, such as nickel and chromium. They also had to practice how to affix pieces of zinc alloy to the most exposed hull plates as a corrosion preventative measure and how to add thicker steel plates where the launch tube base and muzzle meet the pressure hull.12 By following foreign texts, they were able to formulate the required processes for welding the thick plates of the pressure hull, but as it turned out, nothing quite went according to the book. The engineers determined, for example, that these steel-alloy plates had to be heated to very high temperatures before any welding was done, but it proved difficult to determine exactly how high a temperature was needed for this process. As in the development of most techniques, only after the yard workers conducted endless experiments did they come up with a solution. 13 Theory proved to be an especially inadequate guide for welding hull plates that were up to 4omm thick and would be cut with more than r,ooo openings.14 The welds in plates of such thickness and configuration suffered a high incidence of both cold and hot cracks from a variety of causes, such as an uneven distribution of heat, improper welding speeds and low current density, the dilution of the weld metal, and the unpredictability of temperature change in the preheating process itself.15 The shipbuilders found that some cracks in the welds would occasionally appear when the plates were reheated, and that the welding of stiffening ribs to reinforce the pressure hull could actually fracture the existing seam welds.16 Several master welders were brought in from other yards to help solve the baffling technical difficulties involved, but in the end trial and error marked the slow path of welding the hull of the first attack boat.17 Step by step, each welded seam in the pressure hull underwent repeated X-ray inspection and pressure tests to detect flaws, procedures well advanced in the West but relatively unknown or untried in China. The navy drew up detailed methods for checking and certifying each assembled hull component and set what it considered to be exacting standards for parts that would bear the heaviest pressures at maximum depth.18 All exterior pipes, valves, and accessories at these pressure points were repeatedly tested until they passed muster, and the Chinese quickly discovered how time-consuming the testing process could be and how difficult it was to enforce rigid standards with confidence among the first-generation shipbuilders at Bohai. 19 Nevertheless, everything finally tested out, and the hull

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and outer shell were completed on December 26, 1970, Mao Zedong's birthday. As the Bohai workers began putting the finishing touches on the basic hull structure, technicians dispatched by the Second Ministry's First Academy (Southwest Reactor Engineering Design and Research Academy in Jiajiang, Sichuan) had been standing by at Huludao to guide the assembly, installation, and test operation of 09-1's power plant. That job began in early 197I.zo With the power plant and its shielding (8omm-thick lead plates each weighing 2ookg) coming together in the boat's hull, the installation of the other myriad subsystems loomed as the most complicated engineering challenge ever to face China's shipbuilders. Tens of thousands of instruments, meters, and equipment began arriving at the pier, and no one knew precisely where to put them, let alone how to fit them into a whole with the thousands of feet of electric cables and pipelines. The possible permutations seemed infinite, and personnel trained to find the right combinations were in short supply.21 As we noted in our discussion of the submarine's design, to determine the optimal placement of the subsystems inside the sub's limited space, the Bohai Shipyard had fabricated a full-sized steel-and-wood model to use for trial assemblies. In each permutation, the engineers had to calculate weight distribution, safety, noise levels, and operational effectiveness and determine how each variable interacted with the others, often in unpredictable ways. After repeated on-site revisions of design plans and assembly techniques, the yard engineers eventually settled on their best-guess arrangement of the sub's equipment and support systems, as well as the exact location for the more than 1,ooo openings on the pressure hull. Chief designer Huang Xuhua argued that the use of the model, while timeconsuming, had saved time and avoided costly mistakes in the long run in completing the interior architecture and outfitting.Z2 With the model as their guide, the technicians spent the first months of 1971 placing the power plant and many of the subsystems inside the pressure hull. By April, this operation had been fine tuned to the satisfaction of the First Academy and yard personnel. Only the loading of the nuclear fuel rods in the power plant remained to be done.23 In June 1971, the workers finished loading the reactor and brought it to initial criticality. The powerful plant was ready for a full test. The Project 09 Leading Group reported this success to the Central Special Commission and the Central Military Commission and submitted a recommended schedule of dockside tests and sea trials. Zhou Enlai received the report on June 20, and, not wanting to rush the go-ahead decision, drafted the fol-

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lowing instruction: "The experimental plan on starting test operation of the [submarine nuclear] power plant won't be authorized until the special commission holds a meeting on June 2 5."24 Attempting an engineering feat of this magnitude once more had activated the high command. On the night of the 25th, accompanied by the vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, Ye Jianying, and Vice-Premiers Li Xiannian and Yu Qiuli, Zhou Enlai met in the Great Hall of the People next to Tiananmen Square. Chen Youming, head of the Project 09 Office, briefed the assembled dignitaries on the leading group's schedule. The meeting then recessed, and by the time it resumed the following day, Zhou was ready with a directive. 09-1 would be tested in four phases: The first phase is a complete test of the submarine berthed at the pier; the second phase is a maiden voyage of the submarine on the surface; the third phase is a submerged trial run in shallow water; and the fourth phase is a submerged trial run in deep water. No trial run is to be carried out until the navy and the Central Military Commission have approved a written report [on the previous one]. You should pay particular attention to safety. Don't rush through your tasks.

The premier seemed most at ease when making the obvious seem significant, but the value of just his imprimatur during this period of political uncertainty is not to be underestimated. Zhou also took this occasion to remind Vice-Minister Bian Jiang where his ministry's responsibilities lay: The Sixth Ministry of Machine Building is in charge of the integral test of the submarine tied up to the pier. Bian Jiang, you are responsible! You must not think that things will go off without a hitch once the submarine is launched. You may not turn over the submarine [to the navy] until you have completed the four-phase trials.

Zhou gave the officials of the Second Ministry the same stern reminder: they continued to be responsible for the power plant and must "send people [to the pier] to help carry out one more inspection. All of you are responsible for the project." 25 A week later, on July I, everything seemed to be proceeding according to schedule. The supervising technicians issued the order to bring the 09-1 reactor on line, and two months later, the first-phase test was successfully conducted on the submarine at the main pier of the Bohai Shipyard.Z 6 With step one out of the way, the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Project Leading Group, as instructed, requested authorization to set the date for the sub's maiden voyage.27 Optimism ran high throughout the project that the end was in sight. On August 23, the 09-1 power plant achieved complete operational status, and the submarine cast of£.2 8 But the years of chaos and inattention to technical quality control had

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taken their toll, and numerous "abnormal phenomena" came to light during the cruise. When word of the several technical mishaps reached him, Zhou Enlai issued the following directive: Several problems have already occurred in the maiden voyage of the nuclearpowered submarine. Other problems will probably appear hereafter. You should sum up experiences at all times so as to avoid accidents, especially any major accident that would result in the death of crew members or the destruction of the submarine.29 The tenor of Zhou's message suggests just how bad things were during the initial sea trial. But again power politics intervened. With Lin Biao's alleged failed coup attempt and death on September I 3, all military projects came to a temporary halt. In the purge that followed, Project 09 came under sharp attack. Accused of being a sworn follower of Lin Biao, Li Zuopeng was dismissed from his post as head of the Project 09 Leading Group. Some senior officers went so far as to associate Li's efforts to develop the project with his attempt to participate in Lin Biao's plot to usurp the supreme Party leadership and state power. A few described 09 as a "black project." The leading group's approval of the phased tests was rescinded, leaving 09-1 in limbo.30 Fortunately for those who had invested their all in the project, several rapid changes in high-level personnel rescued it before much damage could be inflicted. Even before the September incident, Marshal Ye Jianying, in his capacity as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, had quietly begun lessening the influence of Lin Biao over the Chinese military, and a few days after Lin's death, the Politburo began reassigning the staff of the Central Military Commission to Ye. Before formalizing its personnel decisions, the commission created an organ called the Administrative Meeting (Bangong Huiyi) under Ye to oversee the commission's routine procedures, replacing the Administrative Group (Bans hi Zu) that had been dominated by Lin Biao. Using the Ban gong Huiyi, Ye Jianying assumed full control of the commission's daily affairs by early October.31 Meanwhile, upon Li Zuopeng's ouster, his deputy, Zhou Xihan, who till then had been responsible for the daily affairs of the project and concentrated mainly on technical matters, had taken over by default. In his new circumstances, Zhou briefed Marshal Ye on the postponement of the 09-r's test program and asked that the hold on it be lifted.32 At about the same time, Zhou Enlai instructed Ye to call a meeting of the Politburo to discuss how to address 09's political problems, and Ye took the occasion to go on the offensive. With some anger, the marshal told his colleagues, "Premier Zhou himself was in charge of the nuclear-

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powered submarine project. It is a red project. Who says it is a black project?" With so much going on in the aftermath of the Lin disaster, no one was prepared to contradict Ye, and Mao nodded his assent. Ye then instructed the commander of the navy, Xiao Jinguang, who attended the meeting, to give more active backing to the project. After the session, Ye ordered Zhou Xihan to press ahead with the 09-1 program and simply to ignore the gibes of its opponents. So, with a measure of calm restored, the project moved ahead. Twenty more sea trials were conducted from 1972 to 1974, and all experienced misfortunes of varying (and still secret) degrees. Many years later, a senior navy official disclosed that the crew members who served during these and later trials immediately showed the ill-effects of overexposure to radioactivity: "The white blood cells of officers and sailors who had directly or indirectly been engaged in radioactive jobs were found after physical examination to be universally lower than those of normal people." The official reported to the National People's Congress that the crews of these vessels were demoralized and needed help to "stabilize their thinking." 33 The news of the plight of the 09-1 crewmen could not be contained. As word of the potential danger spread throughout the fleet, other sailors resisted assignment to the nuclear navy. Some sailors dreaded the "nuclear terror," one source reported, and "are full of concern because they equate the [operation of a submarine's] reactor with the explosion of an atomic bomb." 34 Many alleged that large numbers of dead fish could be seen floating in the wake of 09-1's operations.35 Though the dangers to humans and marine life sometimes took years to be known and may well have been exaggerated in the telling, most of the more mundane technical problems were discovered and dealt with at once. There were a few, however, that stubbornly resisted solution. In one of the sea trials, for example, the crew found corrosion at stress points in the heat exchanger's piping and repeatedly detected radioactivity in the boat's drainage pipes.36 Although radioactive elements are normal in the primary loop pipes, the engineers could not figure out how radioactivity had moved from this supposedly hermetically sealed loop to the second-loop drainage system. They also could not solve the leakage of valves in the primary loop. Some Chinese specialists say these and similar problems have yet to be fully resolved.* Reports of these deficiencies were flashed to the Project 09 Office, and Zhou Enlai immediately ordered Ye Jianying and Vice-Premier Li Xiannian to personally monitor the repairs and again called on the tech*In at least one nuclear sub, the condenser and major valves leaked high-pressure steam, intensifying the crew's fear of accidents. Liu Shengdong and Zhang Weixing; Guo Xiangxingetal.;Jia YupingandSun Yongan, 14-15;JiangRubiao andXiangXin.

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The Submarine

nicians and 09-I crew to consider all possible ways to avoid accidents that could result in death or the loss of the submarine. In response, engineers from the Sixth Ministry and technical officers from the navy joined ranks to perform almost 200 tests in more than 20 additional sea trials on the boat. In the process of rounding off all four phases of the test sequence, 09-I traveled more than 6,ooo nautical miles. Finally, Zhou was satisfied that the nation's first nuclear submarine was safe and authorized the navy to take it over from the Sixth Ministry. On August I, I974, the Central Military Commission issued an instruction to name the craft Long March No. I and to add it to the battle order of the navy.37 The completion of the four-phase functional test laid the foundation for the series construction of China's first generation of nuclear attack submarines.38 The navy assigned the first 09-I the hull number 401. After some delay for minor design modifications, 402 was commissioned in I977·39 Both boats continued to be plagued with endless technical problems (including corrosion and leakage of the steam generator and defective pumps, condensers, and main reductions gear). What is more, the institutes under the Seventh Academy and the Fourth Ministry had made little headway in their efforts to develop sonar systems, long-distance communications, the inertial navigation system, and a deep-water homing torpedo. These electronic components and weapons could still not meet the required standards and thus were not installed on either sub. For this reason, these early models were sometimes characterized as "sharks without teeth." 40 Nevertheless, in July I978, the navy recommended that the construction of the 09- I boats continue. On the 2oth, Deng Xiaoping agreed to the proposal "in principle" but added, "the cost of such things is very high. You must ensure the solution of all technical problems before you start followon series construction." 41 The month before, Deng had told the military industrial ministries to start a fresh round of attempts to solve the quality problems of all naval weapons systems. He ordered the navy to refuse any substandard ships from the Sixth Ministry. As a result of his prodding, the Chinese began equipping their nuclear boats with acceptable subsystems by the mid-I98os.42 By I99I, the navy had commissioned four more nuclear attack submarines of the 09-I class, bringing the total to six.43 Retrofitting the 3 r-Class Submarine Before the completion of the first 09-I, the navy had set in motion plans to transform the design for the attack boat into a design for a ballisticmissile submarine and to translate the engineering designs for the missile-

Building and Deployment

III

launch mechanisms from the drafting table into an operational system for the new craft. For the latter task, it decided to retrofit its single Sovietdesigned conventional-powered ballistic-missile submarine. Although the designing of the nuclear missile submarine, code-named the 09-2, and the research and development on the missile ejection system in the Soviet-model submarine proceeded in parallel, the latter had to be completed first in order to determine the final design of the 09-2. Accordingly, we turn first to the story of the retrofitting of that boat and the perfecting of its ejection system as a prelude to understanding how the 09-2 was built. As we have seen, in compliance with its agreement of February I9 59, the Soviet Union sold China the equipment, components, and technical data required for assembling a Golf-class submarine and an outdated naval missile, the R-IIFM. (Both designations are the ones used in the West; the Chinese counterparts are 3 I-class and missile Io6o.) 44 The navy selected the Dalian yard for building the submarine.45 By the time the job was completed, the yard had become the nation's largest and one of at least six constructing submarines.46 Working with Soviet designs and equipment, Dalian built a special shipway and then, in I96I, began assembling the boat from Soviet-supplied components. The submarine was launched in I964 but was not ready for training missions for two more years.47 In November I967, about a year after the launching, the Defense Science and Technology Commission and the navy held a joint meeting to examine and approve the design plans for a two-stage solid-propellant ballistic missile for launch from a submerged submarine.48 This missile, the ]ulang I (JL-I) will be discussed in the following chapter. As originally built, however, the 3I-class submarine could not launch this missile. In the first place, its ejection system was designed for surface, not underwater, launch.49 Moreover, its missile tubes, located in the conning tower of the sub, were designed for the smaller R-IIFMs (Io6o) and could not accommodate the JL- I: the JL- I was IO. 7m in length and I .4m in diameter; the R-IIFM missile measured 9·5 by o.88m.50 By this time, the Seventh Academy's Institute 7I3 had made considerable progress on the JL-I missile's ejection system, and in I968, the navy and the Defense Science and Technology Commission gave final approval for rebuilding the Golf to the specifications of the new missile.51 Soon afterward, the navy set up Office 9 3 I for the daily management of 3 I 's retrofitting and transferred officers from the Naval Equipment Department to man it. 52 The rebuilding process principally meant changing the structure of the conning tower and installing the advanced missile ejection system in it. Un-

II2

The Submarine

der the administration of Office 931, technicians from Institutes 713 and 719 and other research facilities teamed up to plan the ship work and quickly concluded that they should concentrate first on perfecting the ejection system. To do this, they began conducting land-based ejection tests of model rockets of varying sizes but quickly decided that any ejection system had to be tailor-made to fit each specific missile.53 Thus, the technicians designed two full-sized reusable models filled with water in rubber bags with JL- I 's exact weight.54 They made "model one" for ejection from a silo and "model two" for launch from the yet-to-be retrofitted submarine. In 1970, the team began conducting ejection tests of model one from a semi-buried silo at the Naval Test Base (Base 23) in Huludao.55 Over the next years, they conducted hundreds of these tests and incrementally modified the system. Accidents during these tests were not common, but,when they happened, they left a lasting impression on the witnesses. On one occasion, for example, after the technicians ignited the gas-steam generator, the powerful mixture ejected the missile improperly, shattering part of the generator and causing a rupture in the silo wall. One steel fragment from the silo was hurled tens of meters and smashed the roof of a car. Those safely lodged in shelters stared in shock, and one of the observers, later to become captain of a missile boat, remained acutely aware throughout the rest of his career that a similar accident in his submarine would destroy it and him. This experience led the team members to devise a test to assure themselves that the sub would survive even if the missile failed. They decided to drop model-two dummy missiles from a height of several meters to calculate various safety parameters. During several nights in August 1970, JL-I's chief designer, Huang Weilu, took his team and the simulators to the Changjiang Bridge in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. There they dropped the dummies from the bridge into the river to determine the probable damage to a real missile and theoretically to the submarine and its crew. They conducted these drop tests from different angles and finally convinced themselves that the missile was safe for testing.56 With the tests on the silo-based system nearing completion, the navy and the Defense Science and Technology Commission met on June 21, 1971, to plan the next phase, tests from the sub. But at that point, the officials could only approve the plan in principle, for the Dalian yard had not yet completed work on the conning tower.57 In anticipation of that day, the navy went forward with its planning for a test program. To guarantee the safety of submariners even in case of serious breakdowns, it selected a shal-

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II3

low area as the test site and ordered Xu Junlie to form a team to evaluate defects in the conduct of the forthcoming test series.58 The test was put on hold for more than a year as the task of modifying work on the conning tower went slowly at the Dalian yard. The work was finally concluded toward the end of the summer of r972, but the first outing and test, on September rs, flopped. Only two months later, on November 23, could the navy declare success.59 It approved the basic design of the system and then ordered follow-up tests to assess each subcomponent. Accidents again plagued the test program during this follow-up phase. In one case, the gas generator ignited prematurely, and the model rocket was ejected from its tube improperly, causing the missile to fall perilously close to the submarine itself. The submariners could only guess their fate if a live JL-r had hit the boat.60 As one might expect, this and other accidents had the effect of forcing a close review of every step necessary for conducting each test, and this requirement was translated into continuous bureaucratic intervention and red tape. By r975, as can be seen in Figure 5, the construction effort had produced still more bureaucratic layers. Months were to go by before the navy and the commission, in May r973, were willing to give the central authorities their best estimate of the steps essential to the test process in a report entitled the "Summary of the Coordination Conference on the Second-Phase Retrofitting of the 3r-Class Submarine." On May r3, 1973, the State Council and the Central Military Commission approved the document and in principle called for the completion of the second-phase refitting and the resumption of tests with the model two by r975.61 The work of the defense scientists, however, could not escape the particularly intense turmoil that was to last until the death of Mao in September r976, and the completion of the second phase was thus delayed until late in the decade. Yet slowly and haltingly, with their engineering work mixed with political struggle, the technicians installed the last of the sub's 140 new instruments in its missile launcher compartment and readied the JL-r for its inaugural underwater firing. 62 Between May 7 and November 20, r979, when all was ready on the submarine, the navy conducted six more ejection tests with a modified version of the model-two simulator. The engineers used the "comparatively complete technical data" from these tests to further refine the design of the JL-r itself and to adjust their test operations in accordance with actual sea conditions.63 After I4 years (I96 s-79) of halting progress, the ejection system for an underwater launch was ready, and at other bases the work on the missile was being frantically pressed forward. The missile engineers con-

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ducted land-based flight tests of the JL-1 missiles from a launching pad in June 1981 and from a test launch tube the following January and April to verify the performance of the ejection system. Finally, on October 12, 1982, the first JL-1 flew from the submerged 31-class submarine and ignited just after breaking the surface to begin a perfect trajectory.64

Construction of the 09-2 Submarine As the work on the 31-class submarine and its missile-launch mechanisms moved fitfully forward, the Project 09 planners kept pushing back the schedule for designing and building 09-2, the nuclear missile submarine that would use the 09-1's power plant but be reconfigured for launching 12 JL-1s. Nevertheless, as early as 1967, when the 09-2 program was officially started, the design engineers could make some assumptions about the pace of the 3 r 's retrofitting and begin drafting at least tentative plans for the construction of the missile sub. By the fall of 1967, they had completed the first version of these plans, and in October Nie Rongzhen's commission and the navy convened yet another round of meetings to examine and approve the final procedures for 09-2 and its missile. A flow chart laying out the interrelated steps for both programs, including the retrofitting of submarine 31, was reviewed and adopted. When the Central Special Commission put its chop on all these plans, it also decided to use a single 09-r-type reactor in the missile boat.65 The two reactors would nevertheless differ in some respects. The 09-2's would have 20 percent more power, for a rated output of about 58 megawatts (thermal) against 48 for the 09-r, yielding a shaft power of 14,400hp vs. r2,ooohp, a power efficiency of about r8 percent, the same as 09-1. The 09-2 would also displace more tons (up to 4,ooo vs. up to 3,ooo), and be slightly slower (with a maximum submerged speed of 22 knots vs. 26).66 Both boats would have pressure-hull plates of the same thickness, 4omm, but the 09-2's pressure hull would be of larger diameter (rom vs. 9m).67 It would also be able to stay submerged for a longer period (90 days vs. 6o days).68 Like 09-1, it would be capable of withstanding hydrostatic pressures at depths of up to 3oom, and would be equipped with advanced wireguided or acoustic homing torpedoes capable of attacking submarines.69 Figure 6 is an artist's synthesis depicting the two submarines. Since the Bohai yard's technicians and workers had already built a nuclear boat, the navy decided, without much deliberation, to construct 092 there. Any other decision would have caused major delays and greatly increased costs. The work started in 1971, at about the time 09-1 embarked on its maiden surface voyage? 0 Originally scheduled for launching

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Building and Deployment

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in I973, the missile sub did not slip down the way at Bohai until I98r.71 Not a little of this delay was due to the ceaseless political turmoil in the wake of the Lin Biao affair. From I973 to I976, the radicals refused to relent or tolerate a return to business as usual, and like other key strategic weapons programs, Project 09-2 lay in shambles. Zhang Aiping tried but failed to revive it when he became director of the Defense Science and Technology Commission in March I97 5, but only the arrest of the radical leaders-the infamous Gang of Four headed by Mao's wife-after Mao's death in the fall of I976 opened the way for construction of the 09-2 to get moving again.72 Still, politics accounts for only part of the delay. Technological obstacles also plagued the developers. For years, the research facilities under the Tenth Academy (radio electronics), the Seventh Academy (shipbuilding), and the Nineteenth Academy (telecommunications) had tried to make the 09- 2's electronic components, and though the cooperation among the three units was apparently quite good, they repeatedly failed in their efforts to perfect the o9-2's subsystems. 73 The 09-2 plans called for multiple sonar devices, each to a different end: navigation, reconnaissance, warning, search and tracking, fire control, attack, and underwater communication. Most of these sonars would depend on hydrophones (passive sonar) mounted in a large unit in the bow and in secondary arrays near the bow, amidships, and the stern for total defensive coverage.''. These passive systems proved relatively easy to develop, and the· experts were especially proud of their anti-interference innovations?4 Fabricating the active systems for navigation, communication, and attack, however, turned out to be far harder, as did the development of the integrated sonar command-and-control systems. Not until the early I98os did Institute 706 (with help from the Tenth Academy and the Academy of Sciences, as well as industrial enterprises) achieve success on these technologies?5 Long-distance communication posed perhaps the greatest hurdle the navy faced in meeting its new requirement to ensure strict command and control of strategic units built to cruise freely in remote sea areas. Its existing stations at Qingdao, Ningbo, and Zhanjiang, built in the I9 so's with Soviet equipment, could not provide assured communications with any boats at long remove. Effective command and control of the wide-ranging *Sonar technology is critical to the success of most submarine missions and often leads to compromises in hull configurations. For example, the large bow sonars that are extremely sensitive for detecting other submarines often preclude the use of straightforward torpedo tubes and require skewed placement. Information from an American specialist, r991.

II8

The Submarine

o9s thus became the single highest priority?6 The problem of long-range communications with submarines, once so much on Nikita Khrushchev's mind, was now to plague Mao's heirs. Given the state of Chinese knowledge, the trade-off the communication engineers had to make was between effective control and the submarine's safety. The research institutes had already made substantial progress in mastering communications using very low frequencies (VLF: 3-3oKHz), but like their counterparts across the world, they were stumped by extremely low frequencies (ELF: 30-3ooHz). The problem is that VLF radio can penetrate only a few meters below the surface, whereas ELF radio can reach 100 or more. A submerged submarine that is dependent on VLF as its primary means of communication must thus deploy its antennas and patrol near the surface, thereby risking detection. These technical realities complicated command and control. More compact electronic vocabularies had to be invented for speed of transmission, and the engineers had to draw on an old branch of Chinese learning, cryptography, for ensuring the authenticity of messages sent in those vocabularies.7 7 The long-forgotten agreement with Moscow now became important as the Chinese investigated long-distance communications with submarines. As part of the disastrous negotiations on naval cooperation, the defense ministers of China and the Soviet Union, on August 3, 1958, had signed an agreement for constructing a high-power, long-wave radio station. The Soviets had thereupon sold the Chinese the required equipment and began to provide technical assistance on the station. But the project had come to a halt two years later with the termination of all such assistance.78 In 1961, when defense programs had begun to recover from the blow of the Soviet withdrawal, Zhou Enlai instructed the navy to establish a special committee to continue the construction of the long-wave radio station with the assistance of the relevant industrial departments. Over the next years, the work on the station proceeded on schedule, and in August 196 5, it began routine communications with the expanding submarine fleet. 79 This system was only the prelude to the one that would be needed for the missile sub then on the drawing boards. In 1969, Mao Zedong approved the construction of an extremely high-power VLF station as part of Project 09, and for 13 years, until September 1982, research, design, and then construction proceeded, driven more by political than technological imperatives.80 The completion date coincided with the scheduling, for October, of the launch of the first }L-1 from the 31-class submarine. Meanwhile, as the work on the land-based station was under way, Institute 722 (communications) in Wuhan and other research organs under the Tenth and Seventh academies made progress on developing a shipboard

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myriametric-wave receiver. 81 By 1982, the navy felt confident that its headquarters could communicate by VLF with its strategic submarines in all proposed operating zones. But this still did not solve the problem of how a submarine could communicate safely with its home base. The Chinese knew that Western surveillance systems required only about a few seconds to detect and locate the transmissions of all but the most modern submarines. The best defense against such intercepts, they understood, was to develop technologies for so-called instantaneous communications for both transmission and reception. Institute ror9 in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, worked out these technologies, and then developed a high-power microwave system that could communicate via space satellites.82 In completing this system, other institutes concentrated on making and improving specialized communication satellites, five of which were launched between 1984 and 1990.83 The military was awarded control of the majority of the satellite channels, with priority given to the General Staff and the navy. 84 With the installation of these systems, the leadership considered the matter of full and reliable command, control, and communications settled-at least for the time being.85 The electronics specialists also worked closely with specialists on modern navigation aids. In the late 1970s, the navy had started work on three high-power radio navigation stations in South China; they came on line in 1989. The year before, the navy had broken ground for another three stations located in the north and the east.86 But none of these facilities had the capacity to service submarines operating far from China's coasts. The Chinese approach to this problem, as we have noted, was to develop an inertial navigation system for 09-1. The engineers at Institute 707 knew that in such systems the error rate increased with the range cruised and that they would have to find ways to offset these errors.87 By 1979, engineers at 707 had made two workable systems, and in the next decade, the institute developed an even more advanced system.88 Meanwhile, other engineers were working on a stellar system, and by the mid-r98os, Institute 20 in Xi'an and Institute 707 had developed a more modern integrated inertial navigational system linked to the U.S. NavStar and Omega (VLF) systems, as well as to on-board optics (for astronomical sightings) and computers.89 The Chinese apparently were willing to take the risk that the United States might deny them access to its systems in wartime. Although the Chinese recognize that their present system is not as accurate and certainly not as invulnerable as the one used by U.S. missile submarines, they consider it adequate for 09-2's current missions.90

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The Submarine

Thus the electronics work proceeded one component at a time. When the last item on the list, the improved radar, was completed; 1 the Chinese developers congratulated themselves on designing, fabricating, and testing thousands of instruments, controls, and hardware. They regard themselves as the unsung heroes of Project 09. Most of 09-2's subcomponents were now ready for installation and testing.92 In the first half of 1983, the engineers and navy technicians began various performance tests in preparation for the boat's trial voyages.93 Again, problems surfaced, but none were as serious as those that plagued the 09-1 at this stage. New equipment and interior designs, for example, created such sharp "climatic" variations that the crew members in the instrument compartment had to wear wool overcoats while their fellows in the engine room were forced to work in sleeveless undershirts. One visitor compared the environmental differences throughout the boat to "the changes of the four annual seasons." 94 The noise level also proved too high in the early trials. Another visitor described the noise as "unbearable" and quoted a sailor as saying that "the rumble of the machinery made him lie awake all night." He added, "Some sailors figured out a way to fall asleep quickly by singing repeatedly a small song they composed: '[The sound of] lung lung lung, peng peng peng accompanies you and makes you go off to dreamland.' " He and his comrades feared that the peng, peng, peng also might reach the ears of an eavesdropping enemy. This and other early problems were quickly fixed, with the result that 09-2 rapidly moved through its sea trials. In August 1983, the Central Military Commission added the missile submarine to the navy's battle order; it joined the fleet as hull number 406.95 Years later, senior officers were quoted as saying that the missile submarine assured China the capability "of staging a counterattack even after being subjected to a surprise nuclear attack." 96 Their confidence rested on the capability of 406 and its future sister ships to attack targets at ranges up to 1,7ookm with 12 40o-kiloton warheads. The sister ships were already under development when 406 joined the fleet. The Sixth Ministry had designated the Huangpu Shipyard near Guangzhou to build the next missile submarines, the 09-3 and 09-4.97 The navy had started upgrading the aging shipbuilding facility in 195 3, and it had become reasonably modernized by the late 1970s.98 It was chosen over Bohai mainly because of the severe problem of cracking that occurs when welding is done at relatively low temperatures. The warmer climate of South China weighed heavily in favor of the shift to Huangpu.99 Equipped with an 09-2 nuclear reactor and 12 jL-1 missiles, the 09-3

Building and Deployment

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sub was to be an improved version of the 09-2. In the late 196os, the engineers designing the 09-3 planned to install the most advanced equipment and to outfit the sub with a new variable speed propeller drive.100 The Nuclear-Powered Submarine Project Office (Lingjiuban) assigned Jiaotong University in Shanghai to develop a hydraulic coupler, about which we know little other than that it would replace the propeller shaft gearbox and dramatically reduce the noise radiated from the shaft. At the yard, Director Wang Jinlong took charge of the construction project. 101 Yet, by the early 198os, Deng Xiaoping had moved to curb defense spending and to shift the priority to civilian modernization. With the change of priority, the construction of 09-3 was delayed and then indefinitely suspended. 102 By this time, however, 09-4 was already in the works, and with the 09-3 out of the way the engineers could become ever more daring in their attempts to apply the latest technologies to the craft. In 1985, the Naval Equipment and Technology Department and the Beijing Steel and Iron Research Academy experimented with stealth technology, for example, after studying the foreign literature and intelligence reports on the subject. They recognized that the main problems lay in the shape and exterior material for the boat's periscope. In time, they developed an anti-radar coating and redesigned the periscope, thereby greatly reducing detectability.103 In 1987, the navy and the China State Shipbuilding Corporation also gave priority to upgrading the reactors, electronics equipment, and weapon systems for the future subs and to retrofitting the 09-2.104 The 09-4 reactor would be a more powerful and reliable loop-type system.105 Politics intertwined with technology in the development of 09-4, whose history dates back to the prestudy phase in 197 4· On September 8 of that year, the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Project Leading Group held a meeting to discuss how to formulate the general design plans for the boat.106 The 09-4 would not only be a more advanced submarine, it would also carry a totally new missile, the jL-2. At the multidisciplinary meeting, specialists exchanged points of view on the sub's dimensions, the missile ejection system, and the SLBM's general performance characteristics. The main parameters of the jL-2 missile also were tentatively determined at the meeting. The goal was to build a submarine carrying 20 8,oookm missiles with 400-kiloton warheads. 107 In 1976, the State Council and the military commission approved the commencement of Program jL-2. However, repeated debates on the missile's range caused a lag in the jL-2's overall design plan and thereby delayed plans for the 09-4. In response to a navy report in 1978 suggesting a speed-up in Project 09, Deng Xiaoping obliquely called instead for a postponement. "In terms of nuclear-powered submarines," he said, "you

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The Submarine

should give priority to the quality rather than the quantity. You should place ever greater stress on enhancing the quality." In plain language, Deng meant to check the momentum of the 09-4/)L-2 project, which did not resume until the mid-198os. In December 1984, the Ministry of Astronautics Industry (successor to the Seventh Ministry) began a feasibility study of the new, longer-range SLBM. 108 In March 1986, the ministry decided to complete research and development on the land-based DF-31 missile before installing a redesigned sea-based version, the )L-2, on the 09-4 submarine.109 The next month, the ministry submitted a report on its decision to the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense for approval. At this writing, both the sub and its missile are still under development. Deployment Long before the missile submarine joined the fleet, the navy had ordered the Submarine Institute to open special courses for training officers and sailors to man the nation's nuclear boats. 110 The navy set the most rigid requirements for selecting and educating these elite submariners. Virtually all of these future members of the nuclear navy had previously served on conventional-powered submarines, and most of the candidates for commanding officer had already commanded a submarine.111 Moreover, most trainees had better-than-average educations, and by the early 199os, 9 5 percent of the officers assigned to the nuclear subs had graduated from universities or colleges, including Qinghua University and the Beijing Institute of Technology. The educational level of the nuclear submarine crew members exceeds that of all other PLA combat units. 112 Created in 19 53 and located in Qingdao, Shandong Province, the Submarine Institute is one of four naval colleges that prepares officers for command.113 At any given time, the institute has an enrollment of about 2,ooo studying more than 40 courses, including not just the requisite technical subjects, but also such electives as psychology, ethics, Western philosophy, and Western economics.H 4 Because the school trains all the men slated for submarine duty and deep-water rescue vehicles from the lowest sailor up, it is known as the "blue cradle." 115 None of the men go to their assignments without a strong understanding of safety procedures.116 Crew training at the institute is organized at four levels: for captains, department heads, noncommissioned officers, and ordinary sailors.117 The institute assigns the highest importance to training department heads. In the early years, these officers majored in separate specialties, navigation, weaponry, or observation and communication (guantong). But this specialized training clearly hurt a man's chances for promotion to more gen-

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era! positions, especially as a commanding officer or a shore-based administrator, and since 1979, the course for prospective department heads has embraced all three fields. 118 In recent years, the institute's faculty and technical support staff have developed computer-aided simulators, giving it the finest facilities for audio-visual education of all the naval colleges.119 The simulators are designed not only to help the sailors learn all aspects of operating nuclearpower plants and missile mechanisms but also to take them through mock runs.120 In preparation for the 09 deployments, the navy added base construction to its seeming endless list of requirements. In February 1966, Mao, ever concerned to protect the country's defenses from air raids, urged the navy to "build more shelters" for its ships in man-made caves. "In building [such] shelters, you do not have to adopt underwater operations," he wrote. "You can begin by digging a vertical shaft just like the miners do. Then dig through the rock horizontally to let seawater in. After that, add a hardened cover over the shaft." At this, the navy embarked on a search for a place where the nation might "shelter" its submarines. 121 About two years later, Mao approved the navy's choice of an inlet near Qingdao and ordered the building to commence.122 The navy immediately transferred several engineering regiments to work on the project's first phase, and they proceeded to remove 8ro,ooo cubic meters of rock and to pour 2oo,ooo cubic meters of concrete. The gigantic sea cave completed, construction crews then installed 17,ooo pieces of equipment and laid 22okm of pipeline, much of it related to maintaining nuclear power plants. By the mid-197os, the concealed base was camouflaged and hardened against attack and made ready to receive the first nuclear boat, no. 401.123 In 1975, the navy authorized the North China Sea Fleet to form the Nuclear Submarine Flotilla. The base comprises multiple shelters, each of which has a number of facilities to load and unload nuclear fuel rods, move supplies, monitor the performance of various subsystems, repair breakdowns, and conduct demagnetization.124 The cavernous shelter where the boats are docked is as high as a 12-story building. Large-sized cranes in this shelter can load or off-load the JL- r missiles. 125 Partially protected against nuclear or chemical attack as well as conventional air raids, the shelters can maintain communication and independent operations under combat conditions. The base commander can conduct effective command and control of his submarines for extended periods even when cut off from all outside support. 126 Given the small number of nuclear subs and their vulnerability to attack when in port, the navy created a Nuclear Submarine Repair Team and

I24

The Submarine

charged it with keeping the subs in a high state of readiness. The base took command of the team and filled its ranks with the most qualified master technicians. The navy credits the team with preventing serious accidents to any of its nuclear boats, and submariners have dubbed it "China's No. I Submarine Repair Team." 127 Operating from this base, the 09 boats have provisions for extended sea duty, and special attention is given to the safety and well-being of the crews. The navy provides I3 types of protective clothing for the sailors in hazardous jobs (in addition to 36 types of work clothes for the technicians on the base).128 It also awards a special monthly allowance to the crews and tends to their medical needs in a facility specially built for them, Convalescent Hospital 409.U 9 Beginning in the late I98os, all military men suffered declining living standards because of the government's repeated budget cuts, and the nuclear submariners did not escape.130 Many of them, especially the technical and noncommissioned officers, refused to reenlist in the hope of finding better jobs in the coastal cities. Accordingly, the navy adopted a variety of means to placate or at least retain those submariners with legitimate grievances, including conferring professional posts on technical officers, extending the terms of service of captains and technical officers, and housing their families on the base.131 The navy has also tried to make the service more attractive by recommending exemplary sailors for admission to the Submarine Institute.132 It even allowed the institute to recruit local high school graduates who were in good health but had relatively low examination scores.133 These new recruits are entering a system of training that has been much strengthened over the years. The navy appraises its level of combat preparedness by the number of category I fighting ships (qualified for the round-the-clock alert). In I982, fewer than ten vessels were able to pass the qualifying tests.134 To repair the situation, the navy's commander, Liu Huaqing, began enforcing an unprecedentedly rigid training system in I983, with the result that four years later, half the nation's combat ships were able to pass the tests. In I988, in order to increase the number of category I ships still further, the military commission approved the navy's proposal to create a Combat Ship Training Center at each of its three fleet headquarters. The fruits of these efforts have allowed the navy to shorten the training time for its ready-alert submarines from one-and-a-half years to one year and have brought more and more of them into category I status.135 The operational command structure for the nuclear navy has also changed considerably over the years. Initially, all nuclear submarines, like

Building and Deployment

all conventional ones, came directly under the dual jurisdiction of the Submarine Corps and the Qingdao naval base.136 But as the missions of these subs became clearer the Central Military Commission reassigned them first to a separate service arm (bingzhong) and, soon afterward, to a wholly new body, the Nuclear Submarine Corps, both under naval headquarters. 137 The navy appointed Yang Xi, the first captain of the 401, to command the new corps. 138 His foremost duty was to keep the missile submarine, a grade r boat, at "first-degree combat readiness," and to see that the technicians followed through on their charge to check the status of the sub's missile ejection systems and nuclear power plants every half hour.139 The small number of 09 boats and the JL-r's low accuracy have limited their combat assignment to launching retaliatory strikes against an enemy's cities and other "soft" targets.140 By decree of the military commission, they are under the same strict release rules that are applied to other nuclear weapons. The chain of command runs up from the Nuclear Submarine Corps to navy headquarters, to the General Staff, to the military commission. Only the chairman of the commission has the authority to commit China to nuclear war.141

PART II

The Missile

SIX

Solid Propulsion and the End of an Era

The Chinese passion for explosives transformed warfare in East Asia centuries before the West gave up the sword and the bow. The bamboo firecrackers that marked joyous celebrations in the Middle Kingdom as early as 200 B.C. also accompanied the charge of ancient warriors. Gunpowder was augmenting the lethality of fire arrows by the tenth century; a military commander by the name of Zhao Xie reportedly amassed an arsenal of 25o,ooo gunpowder arrows for the siege of one hapless city in that era. Over the centuries, the Chinese fashioned an astonishing collection of bombs that would kill, expose, or bring terror to their adversaries! The solid rocket came next. The Chinese made their first contraption sometime after II50. They launched an arrow smeared with poison and with an iron balance to hold down the feathered end of the rocket-arrow. The science historian Joseph Needham cites a passage that describes how Chinese had learned to bore an internal cavity in the rocket propellant for more efficient burning: "If the hole is straight-sided (i.e. parallel with the walls of the tube) the arrow will fly straight; if it is slanting the arrow will go off at a tangent .... The shaft has to be absolutely straight, and the rocket-tube and [end-weight of] the arrow must balance perfectly." 2 By the year 1300, the Chinese had further refined their rockets by constricting the orifice of the rocket-tube. This discovery of the Venturi-tube effect (some 500 years before the principle was formulated by Giovanni Venturi) underlies all modern-day designs of rocket nozzles. Soon thereafter, the Chinese fashioned stabilizing devices to their rockets, giving them the appearance of a medieval V-2, the German rocket that wrought havoc in wartime Britain. Perhaps most revolutionary of all, Chinese rocket makers hit on the idea of multistage weapons sometime in the fourteenth century. One such projectile, a forerunner of the modern-day Exocet anti-ship missile, was made

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of two large tubes placed behind a carved dragon head. The fuel near the head of the apparatus would burn first, lighting the second stage just as the first-stage burn terminated. It would "fly 3 or 4 ft. above the water.... At a distance it really looks like a flying dragon coming out of the water." 3 Thereafter, the Chinese inexplicably ceased their exploration into rocketry even as their inventions in this field were being transmitted to the West. The writer Wen Xing laments that many of his countrymen "with lofty ideals devoted their efforts to the development of China's space technology, but they made very little progress because of the limitations of various objective conditions." 4 Soviet Assistance on the Submarine-Launched Missile Despite some intriguing antecedents, China's modern missile enterprise cannot truly be traced to any ancient triumphs in rocketry but dates more unpretentiously from the mid-1950s. This chapter and the next two treat the history of China's first submarine-launched ballistic missile, the Julang-r, that was begun in that decade. One year after the January 19 55 decision to inaugurate the nuclear weapons program (Project 02), Mao Zedong directed research and development to start on aircraft and missile delivery systems for the future strategic warheads. A central figure in Mao's plan was the missile engineer Qian Xuesen, who had served as an officer in the U.S. army and had held professorships at both MIT and the California Institute of Technology. In February 19 56, shortly after Qian's return to China from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, he submitted a report on defense aviation to the Central Military Commission. Two months later, the commission accepted Qian's main recommendations and organized the Aviation Industrial Commission under Marshal Nie Rongzhen to manage the programs for guided missiles and military aircraft.s In May, Nie signed off on a proposal to create an inaugural unit for developing surface-to-surface strategic missiles. Mao agreed in principle but, as was true of the later atomic bomb and nuclear submarine projects, he assumed the need for maximum Soviet technical assistance in the quest for modern missiles and ordered his negotiators to Moscow.6 With the Soviet commitment of September 13 to provide that assistance, the Central Military Commission the next month formed the Fifth Academy under the Ministry of National Defense. Qian Xuesen was made director a few weeks later? Assigned to manage the missile program, the academy quickly organized specialized subordinate units to do the job: the First Subacademy (rocket engines), the Second Subacademy (control systems), an aerodynamic

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IJI

range, and a training unit for missileers. 8 By 1960, the Chinese authorities had transferred roo experts and 4,ooo college graduates to these units. In addition, the military sent the academy more than r,ooo senior and intermediate-level officers, mostly for the purpose of buttressing various political sections.9 Even as the engineers of the Fifth Academy were initiating the militaryrun missile program, their counterparts at the Chinese Academy of Sciences were ordered to conduct parallel work on missile technologies. In 1957, the academy designated its Institute of Mechanics to coordinate this work and transferred several experts on power engineering there from Shanghai and other parts of the nation.10 Under the supervision of Qian Xuesen, who held the concurrent post of institute director, these experts set about investigating ideas for designing the first-generation sounding rockets. 11 As one might expect, the engineers at the Fifth Academy initially dedicated their R&D efforts to surface-to-surface missiles powered by liquidfueled engines, for by I 9 57 this was a domain in which there had already been a substantial transfer of Soviet technology. Though a small solidpropellant rocket program existed, it received much lower priority, and here Soviet assistance was negligible.12 The decision taken shortly after to develop a modern navy was eventually to trigger stepped-up research on solid propellants. In line with that decision, it will be recalled, China began pressing Moscow for assistance in its naval program, and Moscow, after backing and filling, finally agreed, in early 1959, to sell China the designs, technical data, and relevant equipment for (among other things) an R-rrFM, a liquid-fueled SLBM (Chinese code name ro6o).* Though the R-rrFM could only be fired from a surfaced submarine, it had been successfully flight-tested just four years earlier and was the best SLBM in the Soviet inventory at the time.13 The Fifth Academy in due course received a complete set of design drawings and one prototype, immediately assigned its best Russian-speaking technicians to translate the drawings into Chinese, set a goal of two years for building its own version, the ro6o, and began farming out the appropriate work assignments/ 4 Yet the ro6o was not at the top of the missile priority list. As a singlestage missile that had a maximum range of r62km and could deliver a Sockilogram nuclear or conventional warhead/ 5 it made a great deal of sense *The Soviet specialist Mikhail Turetsky states that the Soviet Union supplied an R-13 (SS-N-4). This is incorrect. As the FM designation (flotskaia rnodifikatsiia; fleet model) indicates, R-II FM, was a navy version of an army missile (probably the SS-rB). For a description of the R-rrFM, see Turetsky, 65-72.

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for Soviet strategists seeking a quick-fix retaliatory weapon to offset the striking power of U.S. long-range bombers and European-based nucleararmed systems. But the Chinese military soon decided that the 1060 did not have much strategic relevance for a country whose navy was charged wholly with "coastal defense" (jinhai fangyu). 16 With no prospects for expanding its naval reach soon, the high command had little interest in adopting a sea-based strategic posture. The missile submarine program, even if substantial Soviet aid was forthcoming, was many years away from completion, and military wisdom dictated that China for the immediate future concentrate on procuring a land-based strategic force. As a result, the Fifth Academy downgraded the I06o and turned its development over to the navy. It transferred about 100 of the less-qualified missile experts to the naval units and made them responsible for working on the Sovietsupplied SLBM. 17 Domestic events also weighed against the 1060. Some years before, in December 19 57, the Soviet Union had delivered two land-based, liquidfueled R-2 missiles to China.18 The Chinese gave them the code name 1059, and it was these that now became the prime focus of the Fifth Academy's attention. The timing proved unlucky, however, for the decision to work on the R-2's development soon coincided with the high tide of the Great Leap Forward, when technology and reality fell victim to mob politics. As a result, both the 1059 and the I06o programs lapsed, and when the time came to reactivate them, economic conditions made it imperative to choose between the two. It was an unequal contest after Lin Biao took over as minister of defense in 1959. The land-based missile program was to be awarded the highest priority, one even greater than the nuclear weapons program. In the words of his oral directive to all services on September 1960: "Give priority to missiles and nuclear bombs; [but compared with the atomic bomb,] give priority to missiles. Between surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, give priority to surface-to-surface missiles" (liangdan weizhu, daodan diyi; didi dikong, didi diyi). 19 At a time when the entire nation was in retreat from the Great Leap Forward, and seeking ways to survive the "three hard years," Lin's new mandate had the effect of scrapping the 1060 project. Had the Soviets been more forthcoming in their assistance to the missile submarine program, Lin might conceivably have been less categorical in defining his priorities. They were not. So with no apparent incentive or support to continue the 1060 project, no Chinese specialist was prepared to appeal for its retention, though the missile designers did dismantle the prototype for engineering clues and thereby gained some knowledge that

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later proved useful in the design of the first missiles for underwater launch.Z 0 Besides, many of the designers at the Fifth Academy had already come to favor solid propellants from their study of the American Polaris program.* As a consequence, the Chinese put forward a formal request for Soviet aid on solid propulsion during Khrushchev's third visit to Beijing, September 30 to October 4, 19 59? 1 At the low point in the exchanges, after Khrushchev had already refused to grant assistance on the nuclear submarine, Zhou Enlai mentioned his hope of obtaining SLBM technologies from the Soviet Union.22 Both Nie Rongzhen and Luo Ruiqing sat in on this discussion to represent the military's position, but the conversation did not go well and allowed them no opening to state their case. Khrushchev rudely waved aside Zhou's request by implying that the Chinese would never be able to master the complicated technologies involved. He joked: "Aha, you had better manufacture [the missile] yourselves. We will order it after you have achieved success." Mao, it appears, had expected good news from the zhou-Khrushchev meeting and became quite indignant after Zhou recounted the gist of the conversation.Z 3 All doubts were now erased. China would go it alone on the submarine missile. Research on Solid-Propulsion Technologies

Though the Fifth Academy mustered most of its forces for the development of a liquid-fueled missile, it did not totally ignore the matter of solid propellants. Within months of the academy's creation in October 1956, it had formed ten research sections, each headed by a senior scientist.Z4 With no apparent reference to any future submarine missile, one of these, Section 6, contained a three-person group to study solid propellants. From this modest beginning the Solid Propellant Research Group grew to include more than 70 people in 1960, and it was principally these researchers who denigrated the 106o's liquid-fueled engine for use in the nation's missile subs.25 As in the nuclear weapons program, the top specialists paid principal attention to the U.S. program, for as Mao once remarked, "What the enemy has, we must have." The Chinese quickly learned that the Americans *The decision to go ahead with solid-propellant motors for the Polaris missile program would be made only when the nuclear specialists could promise to produce a warhead of less than I,ooo lbs that was capable of mm accuracy (circular error probable); when a guidance concept that would accommodate solid propulsion and a launch mode for a submerged but stopped submarine had been developed; and when the navy had managed to extricate itself from the army-led Jupiter program. This decision was reached in December 1956. Information from an American specialist, 1990.

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had decided on solid-propellant motors for their submarine missile, and at the time they had no idea what type of engines the Soviet SLBMs would possess.26 The Chinese did know that liquid engines might be best suited to steering the missile after an underway launch, that compared with solid rockets, the guidance system for liquid-fueled missiles was easier to build, that the range/payload ratio per volume was better for liquids, and that attitude vectoring and thrust termination would be simpler on liquids. By the time they had figured out the directions of the Soviet SLBM program and the advantages of the liquid engine, the Chinese were far too committed to the development of solid motors to alter course. At first, the research group's technicians, all recent college graduates, knew little about missiles beyond elementary definitions and basic physics. They possessed no knowledge of the structure of solid propulsion and only minimal linguistic skills to tackle the mountain of foreign publications on these motors that had preceded them to the office of the Solid Propellant Research Group. After reading these publications as best they could, they were able to recite the formal meaning of such concepts as "composite propellants," "case-bonded grain," and "star-shaped internal hole," but any true understanding would be years in the making. They did recognize right away, however, that the project would be demanding and dangerous and had a high probability of failure. In their worst nightmares, they could imagine an unpleasant moment some years down the road when Mao's high priority nuclear submarine would be set to sail without his high priority solid-propellant SLBM aboard. After intensive study of the foreign writings over many more months, the engineers of the Solid Propellant Research Group gradually came to grasp the general principles differentiating the structure of a solidpropellant motor from that of a liquid-fueled engine and had tested some of those principles in the laboratory. They recognized the need to produce a propellant that, when cast as a single, uniform solid or "grain," would be sealed to the rocket's steel jacket, or "case bonded," and that to prevent a burn-through of the jacket, a heat-insulating material would have to be installed between the case-bonded grain and the rocket casing. The grain, insulation, and motor casing thus would be an integrated whole. The center of the grain would have to have a hollow core, probably star-shaped, to yield a neutral burn; that is, a nearly constant thrust during the entire burn time.27 The engineers also studied various chemical mixtures of solid propellants and through reading and experimentation decided to concentrate their efforts at the outset on so-called composite propellants made by com-

Solid Propulsion

1

35

bining an oxidizer and an adhesive fuel. In general, solid propellants fall into two broad types (and a third that combines the two).28 The first type, called double-base, constitutes "a homogeneous propellant grain, usually a nitrocellulose type of gunpowder dissolved in nitroglycerin plus minor percentages of additives. Both the major ingredients are explosives and function as a combined fuel, oxidizer, and binder." Composite propellants, by contrast, "form a heterogeneous propellant grain with the oxidizer crystals [usually ammonium perchlorate] and a powdered fuel (usually aluminum) held together in a matrix of synthetic rubber (or plastic) binder [which is also fuel] .... Composite propellants are less hazardous to manufacture and handle than double-based propellants." In the third type, the composite modified double-base propellant, the percentage of double-base materials is usually smaller?9 Foreign source materials had told the specialists in the research group that the oxidizer in the composite propellants could be either ammonium perchlorate or potassium perchlorate but had provided only minimalinformation on the adhesive for binding the oxidizer into a solid or grain. When one of the young technicians ran across an article published in the 1940s about the use of polysulfides as both liquids and solids, he and his colleagues surmised that they might fabricate one of these polysulfides for the adhesive binder?0 They had made a good guess. In an attempt to reach a breakthrough in grain casting, the group's technicians started experimenting on a variety of composite propellants. They ordered potassium perchlorate at first from the Harbin Military Engineering Institute and later from a plant in Dalian, Liaoning Province; a chemical plant in Shanghai provided the first batches of ammonium perchlorate. Through years of testing, the motor designers gradually settled on ammonium perchlorate as the best oxidizer, and by the mid-196os, the Dalian plant was producing this compound at the standards required for the planned submarine missile? 1 With respect to the adhesive fuel, the Institute of Applied Chemistry was directed to manufacture liquefied polysulfide, which it succeeded in synthesizing in the spring of 1958.32 Thereafter, the Academy of Chemical Engineering in Jinxi, Liaoning Province, took over the production of the polysulfide binder and joined a growing list of facilities in the Northeast assigned to the nascent solid-rocket program. With the first run of oxidizers and binders in hand, members of the Solid Propellant Research Group started exploring the casting of propellant grains in their somewhat primitive laboratory. They immediately encountered severe problems. The high viscosity of the liquefied polysulfide ruined one casting after another, with the result that by October 19 58, after

The Missile

months of wearisome effort, only one small grain the size of a fountain pen had been made. What was needed was a single uniform grain the size of the rocket motor itself. The next year, the group sent technicians to Institute 3 (a facility we encountered in our earlier discussion of the missile ejection system) and Plant 84 5 in Xi'an to perfect the grain-casting techniques.33 The technicians concentrated on ways to increase the fluidity of the liquefied polysulfides and over many months conquered the viscosity barrier. In I96o, at roughly the same time the 1060 project was being abandoned, they cast a grain for an experimental motor with a diameter of 6 5mm and conducted a successful test firing. The Fifth Academy finally had the evidence for staying with solid composite propellants. In January I 9 6 I, in the course of a meeting called by the Defense Science and Technology Commission to debate ways to promote R&D on all missile propellants, the participants formulated a three-year plan of research on solid composite propellants. Recognizing the value of specialization, the next year the commission directed the Fifth Academy to make the Solid Propellant Research Group an independent body and to transfer the specialists working on solid propellants from Institute 3 to the group's new facility at Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. It was there that real progress would be made on grain-casting techniques. Research on the Solid Motor Impressed by that progress and by what he perceived to be the trend toward the use of solid propellants in all U.S. missiles, Nie Rongzhen at the Defense Science and Technology Commission, in May 1962, directed the Fifth Academy to attach greater importance to the solid-rocket program. In transmitting Nie's instruction to his colleagues, Qian Xuesen, then deputy director of the academy, reinforced Nie's decision by stressing the superior operational utility of solid over liquid-fueled missiles. The next month, the academy elevated the status of the Solid Propellant Research Group and ordered a speed up in the transfer of Institute 3 's technicians to the staff of the director of what was now the Solid Rocket Motor Institute.34 The new institute's first assignment was to design a 30omm-diameter rocket motor with the proven solid composite propellant.35 The purpose of a motor of this size would be propellant development, and the case, case bonding, and nozzles would have little to do with the final design of the JL-I motor (except to define the propellant characteristics). In the autumn of I962, Plant 845 in Xi'an helped install a large mixer and related equipment for test-casting a propellant grain of this dimension at the institute.

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In the next few months, the missile case was manufactured and its insulator installed, and the propellant ingredients for the motor were cast in the mixer. After completing the casting process and fitting the nozzles to the case, the technicians demonstrated the motor at the nearby static test stand. This quick success tragically led the workers to underestimate the perils of composite propellants, and their haste resulted in a fatal accident on December 6. While casting grains for the 30omm-diameter solid motors, 2ookg of polysulfide caught fire in the mixer and exploded, causing heavy casualties, including four deaths. As a result of this and other setbacks, work on the motor slowed, and recurring debates erupted among the frightened technicians on how to proceed safely. In the spring of 1963, Zhang Aiping, Nie's chief deputy at the Defense Science and Technology Commission, visited the institute to break the impasse. Zhang told the personnel there to work patiently on the fundamentals of the solid rocket and then to try to improve its quality a step at a time. The visit from Beijing appeared to calm the contentious and nervous atmosphere at the institute, and an orderly development process resumed.36 A year later, Zhou Enlai added his voice to the arguments about the conduct and value of the SLBM program by declaring, incorrectly it would seem, that solid rockets had better maneuverability and stability than liquid rockets.* At a meeting of the Fifteen-Member Special Commission, he said, "If we vigorously carry out coordination and cooperation among several units, we'll surely achieve success [in building solid rockets]." 37 This pronouncement had the effect of ending speculation that the solid-rocket program might be terminated and galvanized the defense industry's leadership to think ahead on the requirements for China's future SLBM. The commission hinted, but did not make explicit, that the submarine missile would have the projected solid-propellant motor and opened the way for first thoughts about what a long-term SLBM program might require. In March 1964, the General Staff and Nie's commission jointly gave the projected missile its code name, julong yihao ("giant dragon no. r ") thereafter abbreviated as JL-r.38 (Eight years later, Nie's commission changed julong to julang, or "giant wave," allowing the designator JL-r to be retained.39 ) ''Solid-propellant missiles have better operational readiness and are believed to be safer to store, though this is debatable. But they are not more stable over the long run and are not more reliable. Presumably, Zhou Enlai had received the conventional wisdom about the overall superiority of solid-propellant missiles and, because of his belief that the Americans would only adopt the most advanced system, chose to accept that wisdom at face value.

The Missile

Two organizational changes over the next several months reflected the ever-greater weight given to work on solid propulsion systems. First, in April, the Solid Rocket Motor Institute was expanded to become the Solid Rocket Motor Subacademy (Fourth Subacademy) of the Fifth Academy. Then, in January 1965, in the reorganization that saw the Fifth Academy become the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building, the unit became a fullfledged academy. Drawing together a number of small units from other parts of the country, the new Solid Rocket Motor Academy (Fourth Academy) received authorization from Zhou Enlai to procure scarce building materials for enlarging its research complex in Hohhot.40 Compared with their counterparts in other academies of the missile ministry, all of which were located in Beijing, the technicians at the Fourth Academy in the Inner Mongolian desert lived under especially sparse conditions. They slept in adobe dormitories and existed on a diet of steamed corn, sorghum bread, and salted vegetables. The dormitories could not even accommodate a visiting spouse, and during the few times set aside for family get-togethers, the nearby fields had to serve as conjugal beds. A bitter-sweet memory of those who spent their married lives at Hohhot is one of fields dotted with colored handkerchiefs on bamboo poles that had been placed to warn off intruders during moments of intimacy.41 That same year, 1965, the Seventh Ministry completed work on an ambitious long-term program, the Eight-Year Plan for the Development of Rocket Technology.42 It set as one goal the production of four kinds of landbased missiles by the year 1972.43 In March 1965, the Central Special Commission approved this "four missiles in eight years" (banian sidan) plan and ordered its implementation.•• The plan also "called for success ahead of schedule on a solid rocket" to be designed for launch from a submarine. The julong/julang was no longer just a dream of a few designers, though the project was still two years away from receiving a formal go-ahead. Later in 1965, as the organizational system was coming together for both the nuclear-powered submarine and the SLBM, the technicians at the Fourth Academy achieved a breakthrough on the twin problems of unstable propellant burning and low levels of energy release by adding tiny (101-t to IOOJ.t) aluminum spheres to the propellant grain.45 Next, they found a way to cast larger propellant grains evenly within the casing without producing fissures. Within months, they had fabricated 28 30omm-diameter solid motors and conducted repeated experiments to test their operational characteristics and response to storage, shock, and vibration. By late August I 96 5, hot tests had been run on six of the motors minus their controls.46 The propellant development was finally making enough progress to

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provide the data, and the incentive, to undertake R&D on the full-sized motor. Once the researchers reached this stage, the ministry escalated its preparations for the JL-r program. Several items were singled out for special attention: developing a new-type adhesive binder (polybutadiene), an ultra-high-strength steel for the motor casing, glass-fiber reinforced plastics, nozzles, and a nozzle lining; mastering the technologies for conducting thrust termination and thrust-vector control; and providing facilities for conducting static tests on larger missiles. To hasten this work, the ministry was authorized to turn for help to any plant or institute in the naticin.47 Project JL- I

In late 1965, the technicians at the Fourth Academy, in collaboration with the nuclear submarine designers, started building a 6 54mm-diameter solid motor; this would be a little less than half the size of the projected JL-r missile. They accepted polybutadiene as the best and now proven binder and stepped up research and development on the prototype solidpropellant motor, giving special attention to the requirements for casting case-bonded grains.48 The R&D on experimental solid motors with diameters of 3oomm and 6 54mm reportedly laid a basis for further improvements in solid propulsion technologies.49 During a three-day meeting of the special commission at the end of December, Zhou Enlai nudged the missile ministry to expedite work on all classes of missiles, and the word went out to the academy to make still greater efforts on Project JL-I.50 The research facilities connected to the project thereafter underwent a bewildering series of reorganizations, ostensibly to remove various impediments to their work. That no single structure was stuck with for long testifies to Beijing's penchant for adopting tailor-made organizational solutions to all manner of specific problems and the myriad crises plaguing the society. Throughout the missile program, moreover, the leaders could seldom find the right persons for the job, and usually the reorganizations had been poorly thought through.51 More often than not the results were disruptive not only for the individuals involved, but for the research effort as a whole. In 1965, the Fourth Academy launched into a two-year course of preliminary studies on the most important technical problems. In 1967, with the results in hand, the special commission reviewed the academy's progress and tentatively approved the start-up of the project.52 On the assumption that many of the liquid rocket technologies would have to be adapted to the solid missile, the ministry assigned the First Academy (Carrier Rocket

The Missile

Research Academy) to manage the full project. Twelve years later, in 1979, the Second Academy (surface-to-air missile) was put in charge so the First could concentrate on the dongfeng (DF) series of land-based missiles and satellite launchers.53 As the command structure shifted, the Fourth Academy adjusted its lines of operation to fit. In making these bureaucratic changes, the Chinese paid dose attention to publications on the U.S. Polaris project's Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT), little realizing that this much-heralded management system disguised a something less than well-organized effort.54 They were also attempting to copy, to the extent possible for their very different industrial system, the American method of having a general weapons system manager over multiple subcontractors with direct development and production responsibilities. Just as the TRW Corporation, for example, was awarded the general management contract for several of the U.S. Air Force's important missile programs, so the Seventh Ministry played the role of system manager in the Chinese scheme of things. It moved the management of program development from the Fourth to the First Academy because in 1967 the First was a much more competent body to complete the comprehensive design and on-board guidance and attitude controls for the JL-I. Then, in 1979, it moved the ]L-1 project again, because, with the abandoning of the antiballistic program, the Second Academy had little to do and could relieve the First of the heavy ]L-1 burden, allowing the First to concentrate on building the DF-5 ICBM. At the outset, in 196 5, three organs under the Fourth Academy had been given the most important tasks. The Solid Motor Strategic Missile Overall Design Department (Department 4) was in charge of conceptualizing the general configuration of the ]L-1; the Solid Rocket Control System Institute (Institute 4 3) had the assignment of producing the ]L-1 's guidance and attitude control systems; and the Solid Rocket Motor Institute (Institute 41) was responsible for developing solid propulsion technologies. Of the three, only Institute 41 remained in Hohhot as the core body that continued perfecting solid-propellant technologies over the coming decades. Both Department 4 and Institute 43 underwent many bureaucratic transformations in the succeeding years, and because of their importance to Project ]L-1, we will pause to briefly review their history. The Fourth Academy had established Department 4 in August 1965. Two years later, after the ministry had granted broad authority for the project to the First Academy, the department, still in Hohhot, reported to its new academy boss in Beijing. By the end of the 196os, the department had grown to about 400 technicians, and in May 1970, the ministry moved it to Beijing and appointed Huang Weilu the department head. In April 1979, it was

Solid Propulsion

moved to the Second Academy and put in charge of formulating and implementing the missile's design plans, including providing technical specifications to the various research units and coordinating these units. Its authority increased a few months later, when it absorbed Second's Institute 26, which had direct responsibility for China's antiballistic missile program.* Immediately after Department 4 was created in I96 5, it formed two units for the purpose of completing preparatory studies of the on-board missile guidance and attitude control systems. In order to bolster research on these systems, the ministry in May I967 told the Fourth Academy to create the Solid Ro~ket Control System Institute (Institute 43) by amalgamating Institute 7 (an internal security organ) with those two units.55 Six months later, the ministry moved the new institute from Hohhot to Beijing and placed it under the First Academy, which redesignated it Institute I7. Under Director Chen Deren, a leading specialist on missile control systems, technicians at Institute I7 completed the guidance and attitude control systems for the JL- I. In I979, when Project JL- I was assigned to the Second Academy, Institute I7 went with it. Figure 7 shows where these organizations fit in the general bureaucratic structure with that change. In late I96 5, Department 4, envisaging that the first and second stages of the JL-I missile would be equipped with a I,4oomm-diameter motor, added research on a motor of the size to the scheduled development of the 654mm prototype. All the R&D work on the two new motors would extend the findings from the tests of the 3oomm motor. Though the engineers worked on both the 654mm and I,4oomm motors, the latter quickly took precedence and eclipsed the effort on the smaller prototype.56 By I966, the ministry and its counterparts masterminding the missile submarine felt confident enough of this preliminary development work to assign the Xinguang Machine Building Factory in Shenyang and the Carrier Rocket General Assembly Plant (Plant 2II) in Beijing to attempt the manufacture of the I,4oomm casing. Almost immediately, the two plants *In February 1964, Mao said, "The spear and shield [missile and antimissile missile] exist side by side .... We will spend ten years [to build the antimissile missile], if five years are not enough. We will even spend fifteen years, if ten years are not enough." Sixteen months later, the Second Academy set up Institute 26 and made it responsible for Project 640, the code name for the nation's antimissile missile project. The project consisted of five items: 640-1 (an antimissile missile), 640-2 (a secret "superweapon"), 640-3 (a laser weapon), 640-4 (an early warning system), and 650-5 (target discrimination). Several research facilities participated in the project. Reportedly, a prototype antimissile missile was successfully flight-tested in the late 1970s. In 1980, the Seventh Ministry formally abandoned the project. Gu Mainan, 14-16; Chen Binet al., ro2; Liu Congjun, Hangtian . .. Yuanshi, 167-69, 194.

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Solid Propulsion

encountered the same obstacle. Their furnaces were simply too small to temper (cuihuo) a casing of this size. Given the time pressures and financial constraints, there was only one solution: the casing would have to be worked in pieces, and then welded into a single rocket jacket. It was about this same time that the Fourth Academy overcame the casting difficulties, and in the late fall, the first case-bonded grain was cast with a diameter of r,4oomm and a star-shaped hollow core. On December r, 1966, the first full static test of the motor was run at Hohhot.57 With this evidence of headway on the missile's controls, the Defense Science and Technology Commission in March r967 received permission to contin~e ProjectJL-r. Meanwhile, the Chinese high command was closely watching the evolution of space technologies in the Soviet Union and the United States and was deeply impressed by their first-generation satellite reconnaissance systems.58 The reconnaissance satellites of these two hostile nations, Beijing concluded, could locate and target all China's fixed landbased missiles, including those to be based in underground silos.59 The Chinese leaders followed the literature on improvements in missile accuracy and even before their counterparts in Moscow and Washington reached similar conclusions, determined that China's projected strategic missiles and aircraft would soon be hopelessly exposed to a preemptive strike. For a time, Beijing joined the superpowers in flirting with antiballistic missile protection for its silos, but it eventually recognized the folly of this course, and abandoned the effort.60 In the next several months after the March go-ahead, the Chinese strategists pondered how to overcome the vulnerability of their nation's retaliatory forces. The only answer, they decided, was to abandon fixed systems and base China's strategic warheads on nuclear-powered submarines and on a new generation of mobile land-based missiles. In October 1967, armed with these findings, the Defense Science and Technology Commission and the navy convened a conference to examine the final comprehensive design plan for the JL- r. The next month, right in the midst of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the Central Military Commission officially ordered the final plaJ!ning for Project JL-r accelerated.61 For the first few months thereafter, as we have remarked, the burden for formulating a full plan fell on the Fourth Academy. But its personnel were clearly out of their depth. The engineers in Department 4 had trouble with one technical unknown after the other, as the questions tumbled in on them in seemingly endless profusion. How could the volume and weight of the missile be reduced? How could the safety and reliability of the missile and its associated equipment be assured? How could the missile be protected from sea water before launch and be ignited and go through stage sepa-

I44

The Missile

ration after launch? How could the missile's flight path be corrected if it ignited sharply off-vertical? How could yaw deviations be controlled after launch? What would be the best way to connect the missile guidance systems to the shipboard target selection, navigational, guidance, and testing equipment? 62 To the extent that the sources are forthcoming, we shall try to indicate how the Department 4 engineers addressed these questions. We do know that the technicians in the department, who were working directly with and under the prestigious First Academy in Beijing, spent seven months providing enough answers to these questions to complete JL- I 's final plans. As concerns for solid propulsion technologies, they stipulated the following: the two stages of the missile would be I,4oommdiameter solid-propellant motors; the motors would be equipped with a new kind of igniter and special safety components; a unique composite propellant would be cast with an oxidizer of ammonium perchlorate and a polybutadiene binder containing several additives; and the motor casing would be made of an ultra-high-strength steel. The plan further stipulated that a type of strapdown compensation system then being used in the landbased dongfeng missiles would be adapted to the JL- I, and that the second stage would be outfitted with an advanced type of thrust termination. The plan adopted several technologies for attitude control: an on-board gyroscope would serve as an inertial measurement device, thrust vectoring would be done by four first-stage rotating nozzles made of special metals, and a secondary liquid injection system would be added to the secondstage nozzles.63 The designers decided that the methodology for the test-launch should also be made part of the missile's comprehensive design plan. They recognized that SLBM test-launch procedures in other nations could be quite complicated-and expensive. Foreign missile builders had not testlaunched their missiles from submerged submarines until they had completed a series of intermediate tests from various land-based and then fixed sea-based platforms, and this was the course contemplated in their plan as originally finalized and approved.64 Constructing the required facilities would require a substantial investment, money that the Chinese in the troubled years of the Cultural Revolution simply did not have. With state revenues for I967 and I968 off by 25 and 3 5 percent, respectively, from I966,65 defense research funds had to be slashed, and the Seventh Ministry accordingly telescoped the requirements for the test program. Just as the Fourth Academy was breaking ground near Hohhot for a large land-based laboratory for testing the missile's seaworthiness, word came down to place the construction on hold. Department 4 then proposed a three-step test plan as a substitute for the

Solid Propulsion now-aborted one. The missile would be test-launched from a submerged converted Golf-class submarine after trials first from land-based launching pads and then from land-based launch tubes. With the Central Military Commission's approval of the proposal in May 1970, construction of the seaworthiness laboratory was permanently shelved, for an eventual savings of nearly roo million yuan and many months of intermediate testing. But the test schedule was essentially all that changed. The fundamental structure of the design and building operations set forth in the original October 1967 blueprint remained more or less intact in the volatile years to come, as did the basic areas of responsibility it staked out: the Defense Science and Technology Commission would be generally responsible for decision making on all R&D plans, as well as for experiments on the missile ejection system; the Seventh Ministry would supervise work on the missile itself; and the navy would be in charge of the test launches.66 Turning the modified October 1967 designs into reality was something else again. Countless technical obstacles had to be overcome even as the political turmoil heightened tensions throughout the Seventh Ministry and its academies. The production of the motors alone involved manufacturing 91 types of materials with all sorts of variations in their individual specifications. To get the work done, the ministry had call on some 55 units working under other ministries in the fields of chemistry, metallurgy, ordnance, engineering, and petroleum. Along the way, the Chinese had to probe the scientific and engineering mysteries in disciplines that were not only still in their infancy in China but under assault. The military connection helped these fields mature intellectually and survive politically during the Cultural Revolution, though the going became increasingly rough.67 Early on in the project the engineers began wind-tunnel experiments at the ministry's Institute of Aerodynamics (Institute 701), in Yungang, 25km southwest of Beijing, to verify the aerodynamic properties of different missile and reentry vehicle configurations.68 The facilities available to them by then permitted tests at simulated speeds from low to hypersonic.69 By trial and error, these experiments inched the project forward, confirming the optimal configuration for ]L-1, and especially for its reentry vehicle. The Impact of the Cultural Revolution So far, we have suggested that the Cultural Revolution had a serious but not shattering effect on Project JL- r, and this was true to a large degree through early 1967. In retrospect, the survivors of the "decade of turmoil" begun by Mao in the summer of 1966 record that the principal impact of the orgy of "power seizures," denunciations, and mass demonstrations fell on the Defense Science and Technology Commission and the Seventh Min-

The Missile

istry within the strategic weapons programs?0 A superficial analysis seems to bear them out-to suggest that it was mainly the men in the top echelons who suffered under the onslaught, and that the system for developing the weapons, though battered, endured and recuperated more or less intact. To leave the matter there, however, would be quite misleading. The system did not endure. In response to Mao's call to hunt down "reactionary leading academic figures," radicalized technicians and workers in the research organs under the commission berated, persecuted, and then sundered the relations between senior scientists and leadership cadres, between the technical community and the policy makers. In one "struggle meeting" after another, the bond of trust between higher and lower levels was shattered even as the ties of comradeship at each level gave way to personal vendettas and long-plotted campaigns of revenge. Fear for one's survival among the commission's staff reflected not only a concern for personal safety but a collapse of the broad social order? 1 In his capacity as head of the commission, Marshal Nie Rongzhen was deeply troubled about the influence of the mass movement on the strategic weapons programs. Although he himself was never in serious physical (as opposed to political) danger, Nie did seek help from Fu Chongbi, commander of the Beijing Garrison, to defend the staff of those programs. He told Fu, "Now the rebels are charging the specialists [working] on the atomic bomb and missiles with being 'reactionary leading academic figures' and are eager to expose them. Could we have detonated our atomic bomb without the [specialists'] efforts? ... Can you figure out a way to allow them to continue their research?" Fu said he could and promptly dispatched guards to shield the defense scientists. But he could do nothing to redeem the vision to which they had devoted their lives or to restore order to the chaos around them. 72 In fact, the disaster was only staved off a bit longer in the missile ministry than elsewhere. The splintering into warring factions spread swiftly there after late 1967, with most of the administrative staff and junior and intermediate-level officials joining the September r 5 Rebellion Corps, and virtually all the engineers and technical workers joining the September r6 Rebellion Corps. Ye Ying, Lin Biao's sister-in-law, was the behind-thescenes leader of the first corps, which denounced followers of the deposed Luo Ruiqing and members of the National Defense Industry Office (NDIO), including Zhao Erlu; the September r6 corps, which is to say, the scientific community, backed the NDIO and assailed Nie Rongzhen and his Defense Science and Technology Commission.73 Violence repeatedly exploded between these two diametrically opposed organizations. One of the most famous clashes broke out on June 8, 1968,

Solid Propulsion

I47

at the ministry's First Academy, which had only months before taken over the assignment of developing Project JL-I from the Fourth Academy. A mob of thousands of self-appointed young Maoists joined the fray, contributing more than their share to the casualties. Among those killed was the Director of Institute 703, Yao Tongbin. One of the leading experts of his day, Yao was then heading a team to conduct intensive tests on materials required for the JL- I missile. His death was a major blow to the project. Alarmed by Yao's death, Zhou Enlai immediately ordered Su Yu, the head of the NDIO's military control committee and himself a target of the September I 5 corps, to conduct a thorough investigation into the causes of the incident and issued a directive forbidding further assaults on the defense scientists for any reason?4 Zhou afterward directed the control committee to draw up a list of the scientists who were indispensable to the weapons programs and to place them under special protective custody.75 Isolation did not protect JL-I's test bases any more than it did the other remote strategic weapons bases, though serious violence did not occur again until I97 4· For years the bases could not escape the society-wide anarchy76 On one occasion, for example, Huang Weilu and his team set out for a missile test base to conduct an ejection test, only to be balked by warring factions of railway workers.77 Absorbed in struggle meetings, the workers simply shunted the team's train onto a siding far from food and water. When an urgent message for help finally reached the ministry, its cadres, too, were preoccupied with the campaign slogans of the moment, and when they refused to act, the plans for the test had to be junked. A woman technician on the team thereupon burst into tears and told Huang: "We devote every effort to prepare for the test and haven't made any mistakes. Why do they deliberately make things difficult for us? I would rather quit the job!" Huang had no reassuring reply. His despair was even greater than hers, for he realized that the cohesion and drive long sustaining the weapons effort had evaporated. Indeed, Project JL-I engineers found themselves constantly flirting with disaster. A "red terror" reigned at the First Academy for years, some say for the entire period from early 1968 to the end of I97I. More than 1,300 staff members were publicly criticized and harried to make confessions. By 1970 alone, the academy's military control committee had accused 746 technicians of having made serious errors and had rallied hundreds of "mass dictatorship" groups to scrutinize their cases. In the process of these examinations, three of the technicians committed suicide, and others became seriously disturbed mentally78 The persecution of defense scientists endlessly delighted their revengeful

J48

The Missile

tormentors, and it reached its high tide in the radicals' campaign to purify the class ranks, designed to sow fear and destroy self-esteem?9 Petty "offenses" could elicit the most damning allegations, as one technician discovered who had an imported typewriter. Ignorant security officers accused him of "having a transceiver used by a special agent," an accusation that could carry the death penalty. Another technician noticed that one of the multitude of Mao statues being erected was off balance, and he unthinkingly commented, "It looks like it's falling." Security officers accused him of implying that Mao "looks like he is coming to grief" and arrested the hapless engineer. And so the atrocities multiplied.80 The case of the senior missile guidance specialist SongJian illustrates the kinds of abuses to which intellectuals were typically subjected. He felt the rebels' wrath in June 1968, when they ransacked his home and confiscated his property.81 Trained in Moscow, Song had been in charge of planning the first generation of surface-to-air missiles and had established himself as a top expert on missile controls.82 At the time of the Red Guards' invasion of his home, Song was deputy director of Institute 26, in charge of the technical side of the anti-ballistic missile project. Alarmed by the attack on such a pivotal scientist, Zhou Enlai immediately added Song to the list of those to be protected and transferred him to a base far from Beijing for his personal safety.83 Those not so prominent were less fortunate. Zhou finally acted to squelch the open warfare between the two factions at the Seventh Ministry and its academies. He orchestrated some 20 meetings of the leaders of the two rebellion corps with senior ministry officials.84 Threatening punishment and playing on their patriotism, he finally brought emotions under control and forced an end to the most crippling demonstrations. Under Zhou's prodding, the two factions temporarily receded into the background, their leaders awaiting later opportunities for revenge. The truce did seem to buy time, but in the autumn of 1969, just as preparations for launching the nation's first satellite were nearing completion, tempers again flared and fights erupted. On August 9, Zhou convened yet another urgent meeting to assure himself that nothing would interrupt the satellite launch. He charged Yang Guoyu, deputy head of the ministry's military control committee, with guaranteeing the safety of the scientists engaged in the project. When Zhou received the names of scientists needing protection, he approved the list and issued a directive to the control committee: "You may resort to force to protect them if anyone attempts to inflict physical abuse on them or to kidnap them. In short, your task is to do whatever you can to protect them from being disturbed or punished." 85 At the time, Huang Weilu, the specialist on missile guidance whom we en-

Solid Propulsion

149

countered during the train incident, was doing forced manual labor, found his name on the list and, with some trepidation, returned to his office. The next year, the ministry put him in charge of the comprehensive design plan for Project JL-r.86 The project also could not avoid the disruptive consequences of the massive shift to the Third Line. Responding to Mao's somewhat frenzied renewal of his call for that shift in 1969, Zhou Enlai ordered the Seventh Ministry to rush the building of Third-Line bases for the strategic missile programs, even if those programs themselves were harmed. The ministry had started construction on a large-scale research facility in Laotian, Shaanxi Province, in 1966, and regarded it as a rear base of the Fourth Academy in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, some 7 sokm to the north.87 Following Mao's call, the Central Special Commission selected this site for the design of equipment for casting large case-bonded grains for solid motors,88 and the ministry accelerated the construction at Laotian. The design, manufacture, and assembly of this equipment were farmed out among roughly 100 research institutes and plants under ten ministry-level departments.89 The geographical scattering of ProjectJL-I tended to exaggerate the system's human and professional disintegration. On balance, over the tenyear period of social turmoil, R&D on the JL- 1 came to a virtual standstill. The flight test of the missile was postponed, and development took years longer than originally scheduled.90 And the selfless and purposeful drive that brought so many triumphs in the strategic weapons arena had largely vanished, never to return to its earlier pinnacle. In looking back at the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, Nie Rongzhen lamented that the "scientific research core" of the defense establishment had been decimated. Extremists had persecuted, even killed, leading scientists and administrators; programs had been stopped and equipment destroyed.91 Equally distressing, projects like JL-I had become the spoils in an endless power game, not the means of attaining China's cherished global status and security. Gradually, the lofty vision of building a militarily strong China had been pushed aside and with it, the spirit of personal sacrifice. For the JL-I project in particular, the change was fundamental. No longer could the engineers at the First Academy, for example, unquestioningly trust their national leaders, let alone their fellow workers. Everyone knew that Mao's authority had withered and been subverted to preposterous, often monstrous, ends. Building a modern submarine missile had now become a technical job, not a crusade, and in subtle ways, the First's engineers succumbed to the sins of their brothers in civilian industry: in-

150

The Missile

dolence, indiscipline, and incompetence. In 1975, Deng Xiaoping was to denounce such sins as endemic in the military, but before the Cultural Revolution, the strategic programs would have been exempted from Deng's indictments, as he himself was to stress.92 The total system failure of the years of turmoil had taken these programs out of their predicted orbits. Strategic doctrines and explicit strategies had been unnecessary before then because the programs' goals seemed so selfevident and so intimately linked to the leadership networks. By the early 1970s, all that had changed. The Central Military Commission had dissolved into a propaganda machine issuing inane directives, the major organs of the defense industry-the National Defense Industry Office and the Defense Science and Technology Commission-had become locked into an orgy of perpetual revenge with their leaders in disgrace, the navy and the Seventh Ministry had split into hostile factions, and the First Academy was in a state of shock. As Deng Xiaoping returned to power in 1977, the best he could do was to accent the need for adherence to regulations, for reorganization of the leading bodies, and for the cleansing of the military's top brass of evil and hated men.93 He could not put the military Humpty Dumpty back together again. When China entered the race for strategic weapons in the 1950s, there was a defiant, almost arrogant quality to its quest. Following the missile and nuclear tests of the early to mid-196os, the grand overseer of the program, Nie Rongzhen, not only could herald the string of technological victories but also could forecast unabated advances toward parity with the great powers. The first atomic test, he said, "marked the bankruptcy of the imperialists' policy of nuclear monopoly and nuclear blackmail, and frustrated the attempts to pressure the Chinese people into submission." To Nie, it was obvious that the strategic programs had produced more than "missiles and nuclear bombs by concerted attacks on the key problems." They had "stimulated the development of many new materials, meters and instruments, and heavy equipment needed for economic construction and promoted the establishment and development of many new production departments and branches of science." 94 He was implying that the military industry was the pacesetter for all modernization in China. Despite Mao's demand in 1956 for spending more on civilian economic construction and less on the military, the reverse had been true for a quarter century. The economic disaster that accompanied the Cultural Revolution restored the general economic imperative, and after Lin Biao's demise, the leadership began lowering the military's budget and its power over the nation's industry. The decline of the military industrial system was evident to all.

Solid Propulsion

When Deng Xiaoping spoke on military power to the Central Military Commission in I977, the mood of confidence had shrunk to a plea for buying time. No more could Deng share Nie's self-assurance. Instead he had to resort to the dogma of People's War to save China over the long run because "even if we gain IO or 20 years in which to modernize our army's equipment, it will still be inferior to the enemy's." He could not foresee a time when this situation would be "completely changed." 95 Moreover, Deng gave no special credit to the military for major scientific and technical contributions to the nation's economic development. In anational meeting on science in 1978, he praised scientists in general for producing instruments and creating new industries, "including high-polymer synthesis, atomic energy, electronic computers, semiconductors, astronautics, and lasers" without mentioning that all these and many more had been developed in defense programs such as Project 09.96 In short, the dynamic synergy that had linked high politics and strategic programs had all but disappeared. What the Cultural Revolution had done was to smash the bonds between Mao's worldview and the worldview of the strategic weaponeers. The two views had overlapped in important ways, mostly as they focused on the role of military power in achieving national goals. Earlier, we described the different but closely connected emphases expressed at the I9 58 meeting of the Central Military Commission that launched Project 09. A decade later, these differences had become bitter, personal, and antithetical. Regaining the Momentum

As one political campaign followed another in the Cultural Revolution, the best the JL- I builders could do was to try to insulate themselves as much as possible and concentrate on their own seemingly endless technical difficulties. By early I970, technicians at the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry and the Lanzhou Academy of Chemical Engineering were able to supply Institute 4I with a polybutadiene binder.97 The other materials and components for the motor had already arrived, and the engineers at Plant 692 in Luzhou, Sichuan Province, and elsewhere had answered the principal questions on the solid-propellant igniters and the missile rivets.98 In April 1970, the technicians at Institute 41 built a prototype solid motor with a diameter of I ,4oomm and conducted a completeprocess test, with positive results. But they could not repeat the results and concluded that they had been a fluke. 99 Moreover, a series of mishaps occurred at a grain-casting plant attached to the institute because of the inadequacy of the directions given to replacement workers for producing the propellant. In the worst accident, on

The Missile

March r6, 1974, Wang Lin, the deputy leader of the workshop where the propellant compound was being mixed, was killed when his crew started an experiment without taking the proper precautions, and the mixer exploded, blowing a protective door off its hinges and full force onto Wang.100 For a while nothing seemed to go well. Overcoming the main technical obstacles in casting the large case-bonded grains appeared to be relatively easy and straightforward in one test, only to elude the researchers in the next. The worst headaches came from failures in bonding the propellant to the motor casing, in achieving the specifications for hermetic sealing, and in ensuring the casing's structural strength.101 In tackling all of these problems, the missile engineers lacked the necessary detectors to locate the flaws in the large-sized grains, and test operations on each problem proceeded by trial and error-mostly by error. The survivors of this ordeal recall that the fabrication of the JL- r motor at this late stage constituted the most important but most difficult achievement in the entire SLBM program. It is not a happy memory. A team formed earlier by the Fourth Academy in Hohhot and headed by Cui Guoliang bore themain brunt in removing the endless technical obstacles. Cui, a top expert on solid propulsion technologies, had completed graduate work in the Soviet Union and, since 1961, had worked exclusively in that field. 102 Cui urged his colleagues to read systematically the few reference materials in the academy's library on mechanics, materials, chemistry, dynamics, and grain-processing techniques and to draw as many ideas as possible from the general literature. Between this and what they could learn from soliciting the help of research organs and industrial plants across the country, the team hoped to turn his research findings into a workable motor. But the responses from the outside were slow in coming and often flawed. The Fourth Academy, likewise, looked for outside help, requesting the Steel and Iron Research Academy in Beijing to fabricate and cast a new kind of steel alloy for the rocket casing, and Institute 17 to work on the rotating nozzles for thrust vector control on the first stage.103 All these parts and the heat-insulating material to be installed between the grain and the casing required important advances in alloys, plastics, and bonding processes/04 They, too, were slow in coming. After years of tedious labor, the industrial facilities under the Ministry of Metallurgy, in cooperation with the iron and steel academy, finally cast the steel casings and nozzles and developed special metals for the nozzle lining.105 They devised techniques to isolate the rare elements contaminating the alloys and remove them.106 The learning curve began to scale upward.

Solid Propulsion

1

53

And in time the political uproar subsided, though it did not disappear entirely and could recur without warning. The fact that the missile builders found a friend in the new director of the Defense Science and Technology Commission, Zhang Aiping, certainly helped. 107 Zhang attached great importance to Project ]L-1, and soon after his appointment in March 1975, he visited the First and Fourth academies and exhorted them to redouble their efforts in coordinating and promoting the project. He encouraged Chief Designer Huang Weilu, Cui Guoliang, Xiao Gan, and other specialists to accelerate their work on solid propulsion technologies and promised them greater protection from the continuing struggle outside their gates. Nonetheless, given the larger events in China, Zhang's words still had a hollow ring, and in any case, his influence over the defense science system faded toward the end of the year with the resurrection of the radicals, led by the Gang of Four.108 It was not until the fall of the Gang in October 1976 that an acceptable tempo returned to Project JL- r. Zhang Aiping then staged a comeback as commission head and marked the conclusion of the Cultural Revolution by breathing life into Project 09.109 Almost a year later, in September 1977, Zhang submitted a report to the Central Military Commission on the development of the nation's strategic strike forces, including the DF-5 ICBM and the JL-r SLBM. The commission promptly approved the report and urged the Seventh Ministry to speed up the research and development on both. 110 Promoted to director of Institute 41, Cui Guo liang had the duty of translating these orders into a realizable schedule. By early 1978, the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry and the Lanzhou Academy of Chemical Engineering had improved the quality of the polybutadiene binder; 111 technicians at Plant 692 had developed workable solid-propellant igniters; and Plant 53 34 had made special rivets for the missile. A team at Institute 41 conducted a complete-process test on the first-stage motor of the JL-1, and by May, the team had built a prototype first-stage that basically reached the acceptable standard.112 Cui was appointed deputy chief designer of the jL-1 project the following April, and as a first priority, he started rebuilding some of the broken ties within the Fourth Academy.113 Cui's institute then conducted complete-process static ground tests on more than ten complete motors consisting of both stages of the missile and achieved satisfactory results. 114 By late 1980, the performance of the JL-r motors had reached the design specifications set by Department 4· The institute promptly delivered eight of them to the department, and the ministry could celebrate the end of the 13-year quest for dependable SLBM propulsion. For obvious reasons, the celebration was muted.

SEVEN

Guidance and Flight Control

On that unlikely day when nuclear warheads rain down on China, senior members of the Central Military Commission will order a retaliatory strike. From the underground command center at Yuquanshan Mountain in the Western Hills outside Beijing, the order is flashed to the Operations Department of the General Staff: destroy enemy cities A, B, and C.1 The department's officers, not a computer, decide that A and B can only be reached by the land-based missiles located in Qinghai Province, but that ballistic-missile submarine 406 at its assigned station at sea can use two of its missiles to attack target C. The operations officer confirms the command and communicates the target order to the navy headquarters special operations officer with the proper authentication codes. The officer tells the radioman to send the firing command to 406 in digital code. On board the sub, the captain receives the command, confirms it, and inserts it in the target data computer memory. The horn sounds, and the crew goes to general quarters. Step one in the fire control sequence is complete. There is no special key system, only years of discipline and a stern political officer who authenticates the order as the countdown begins. For 406, nuclear war has begun. Such was the scenario that planners could imagine in the 196os. To realize the mission, the builders of the submarine had to devise reliable navigational and fire control systems. The first would provide continuing updates to fix the boat's position, velocity, and azimuth reference at the moment of firing, and the second would convert the target coordinates, adjusted for the earth's rotation during time of flight, to the required direction and velocity of the missile at the moment of thrust termination. The mission of the missile builders was to make sure that the missile could hit its target with reasonable accuracy.

Guidance and Flight Control

155

Concepts of Missile Guidance and Flight Control Contemporary missile forces require sophisticated engineering for stabilizing and directing weapons through outer space to preselected destinations? Their guidance and flight control systems, a triumph of modern industrial technologies, have three functions. The first is to maintain missile stability or attitude. The second is to turn or "pitch" the missile onto a proper target heading in the boost phase of the flight. The final function is engine thrust shutdown.3 Missile guidance and flight control utilize the most advanced concepts of mechanical engineering, electronics, and navigation. The system, shown schematically in Figure 8, executes the stabilization or attitude control function by sending signals from a stabilized platform to the flight control subsystem, which converts the signals into commands to the thrust vector servos for execution; the outputs of the accelerometers, also part of the stable platform, are sent to the guidance inflight computer and are used to track boost-phase velocity. That subsystem determines flight-path commands for the missile flight controls and fixes the moment of shutdown.4 In organizing their missile design groups, Chinese engineers divided the missile control systems into two closely connected subsystems: attitude control and guidance. The first subsystem ensures stability by keeping the missile from tumbling and properly pointed (function r); the second determines the missile's range and accuracy (functions 2 and 3).5 Corrections to the missile's attitude (function r) require the detection of angular accelerations with respect to its three axes: right or left along the vertical or yaw axis; rotational along the longitudinal or roll axis; and up and down along the lateral pitch axis. The forces along any one of these axes or vectors are introduced by changing the thrust in the direction of one or more of them, and together their control is called thrust-vector control. The attitude-control subsystem measures the missile's attitude with respect to the three axes and issues the gimbal-angle commands to the thrust-vector control servo mechanisms in the missile flight controls. Four events size thrust-vector control during the boost phase. The first of these is called launch recovery and occurs when the SLBM breaks the surface. At this point, the missile can be as much as 6o 0 off-vertical. A rapid thrust must be introduced to keep it from tipping over entirely and to point it on its powered-flight trajectory. The next two events come at the times of maximum aerodynamic pressure, or "max q," and stage separation (when there is a small delay in second-stage ignition), and the fourth is caused by shifts in the missile's center of gravity as the propellant is expended. Keeping a missile stable is sometimes compared to balancing a

Submarine

..---~---

Fire control

Navy Target data

Missile

' ' ' ' ' ' ' '' ' ' ' '

Propulsion

'' ' '' Target data computer

Navigation

' ' '

Thrust termination

''

La~nch

Guidance

Flight controls

Position

initial condition

Velocity

Target data

Gimbal angles

' '' ' Erehion

Flight path commands

Azimuth reference

_l

Alignment

'